Don't work too much
Published: 2020-07-19 14:51:58

Aloha folks 🤙🏽

There was no post last week. Exactly because of this topic ...
The thing is, I set myself the goal to write something here every week. But the last 3 weeks have been intense. I was working way more than 40 hours in my job and then when I'm at home or at the weekend, I still want (or need) to do my private stuff. And that's just too much.

I really love what I'm doing and what I can do. Really. That's the single one reason why I'm even able to put in such a crazy amount of work. I just like the process. But even then, even if you're absolutely in your thing, there is a too much. And I faced this more often lately. There is more than just this single thing in your life. In my case development. And there's especially more than putting everything in your workplace.

The first step is to be aware of this. Recognizing when you are doing too much and leaving other topics in your life behind. You should ask yourself why the situation escalated. Are you forced to do that much? Or are you like me and just doing so much because you like it? In the first case, you definitely should change something. Take action and look for a solution to get out of that situation. You don't want to be in that place for a longer period of time, trust me. The second case is not as bad, simply because you somehow enjoy it. But it happened to me that still then, there comes a point when you're tired. And then you'll lose motivation.

Also if you're putting all your focus on one single thing all the time, that's just not healthy and good for the rest of your life. Every time I'm seeing myself in a place of working too much, I recognize that other aspects of my life suffer. Sport, fitness, sleep, diet, friends. You don't want that. They are too important.

So what to do? Considering you are now aware that you're maybe in that situation or at some point in the future: Just do less.
Of course it's that simple. For me doing less and leaving the work for the next day or week is just hard, because I'm still dealing with perfectionism from time to time. I already covered this [here](https://blog.jankohlbach.com/dont-work-too-much/). So what I have to do in this situations is dealing with that and just have to say stop at some point.

I managed to do this quite good this week I would say, and let me tell you, it feels really good. You will recognize the more time you'll have. Use it to make yourself some good food, read something, make some sport. I used it this week to recover a little, go for a run and fixing my bike to make a 30km bike tour. What did I learn from it? It increases you quality of life pretty much. Especially spending more time in nature can give you a huge energy push. For us developers it's so important to be more active and do something other for the mind and body than sitting at our desks. I'm definitely going for more biking tours now (plus point: you will discover really cool things around your place ;)).

I just wanted to say this today, because it affects me a lot and I think it's a really important topic. We need to keep taking care of our mind and body. You will help nobody working 100 hours a week when you're dead with 30 then. Let's try to enjoy a little more of this life and the huge variety it offers.

That's it for now, see you. Sometime. Somewhere. 🤙🏽