Tips to overcome work-related overthinking?
I’ve been more and more stressed out about work during weekends; I tend to think a lot about the things I couldn’t finish this week and how to tackle them in the upcoming week. I’ve been getting obsessed to the point I really don’t enjoy weekends and I can’t relax.
It would be unfair to blame external pressures, it is just me overthinking.
What are your strategies to avoid this?
I used to be just like you, I worked for a small startup, I was in essence their only programmer. I considered the owners my friends. Then one day I got sick and send a message saying I wasn’t going to be able to go on that day, one of the owners came in that day and asked for me (just because he found it weird that I wasn’t there) and another one of the owners threw a tantrum at me over email saying I couldn’t just decide not to go, that I either took a dr note or the day would be discounted from my pay. That did it for me, in that moment I realised that the weekends and extra hours I had given them were worthless, I went back a few days later with the Dr note and my resignation. On my next job I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t take work home, they forced clock in and clock out times, so the moment I clocked out I forgot everything about the work, and if ever I started to think about it I would remind myself that they don’t care.
I work for a much better company now, and as a general rule as soon as the work is done I’m done with work, there are exceptions when things need to happen before a certain date, but I also get TOIL or something in exchange.
Distract yourself with hobbies and exercise.
Volunteering twice a week did wonders for me.
My problem was that I didn’t have enough other (pleasant) things to think about in my day-to-day so my brain would just default to thinking about work projects.
I will obsess some 30% of my time about something. I can’t change that, but I can make it be about something I like.
Buy and use a Muse 2 neurofeedback device.
Not affiliated
No disrespect, but paying $250 to meditate seems like the worst of capitalism to me.