Ask HN: How do you take care of yourself?

Accept that projects and hobbies are meaningless to anyone but yourself. If something interests you, spend time on it. When it stops being interesting, don't reminisce about it, and find something else. Losing interest in things is natural and not necessarily a mental problem.

This is entirely unrelated to how you want to take care of yourself. If you notice any physical problem, go to a doctor. If you experience actual mental problems, talk to a psychologist. Do it sooner than later.

First of all, one thing to understand is that EVERYONE feels this. You're not alone, you're not more lazy than someone else, you might have different affinities but this is the cycle everyone goes through, on a weekly basis.

The sooner you accept it, the better off you'll be. Accept your best and your worst and just ride along.

There is enormous amount of BS around, whether it's in books or websites, or biographies.

Wishful thinking != Reality.

Beyond all that, I find balance in having multiple hobbies, knowing one thing: creative energy (for the lack of a better term) is pretty much hormonal. I find it's about a 10 week cycle for me. 3 weeks mad energy, 3 weeks netflix-and-chill "leave me alone", and in between is the transitions.

I'm a designer and developer by trade for about 24 years commercially, I produce music since 96, I have 2 kids, I hack on things, I also do 3D arts, I paint on canvas, I write macOS apps for fun, I take photos with highend cameras, I play pinball and own 6 machines, I make video games (released 1 on PS4 and 1 on Steam), I thinker about network protocols, etc.

That list may sound extensive and the juggle sounds impossible: that's because it is.

Realistically, I do one thing at a time for about a couple of weeks, then move on. I go back to it every now and then.

Eventually, through the years, I have these pools of hobbies in which I dive in and out of, and all is well. It's just one of those "dad things, dad does". In other words: hobbies.

Too much of society wants you labelled for something in particular. The fact is, my music inspires my rhythm, makes me play better at pinball, inspires me to make physics video games, feeds into my programming, pushes me to design something else, tinker with opencv and ball following algorithms, etc.

Life is too short to pretend to be someone else, ride the waves of creativity, don't accept to be labelled, enjoy the process, eventually you'll gravitate back to your choices of hobbies and discover new ones. In my experience, some of the best things in life came about from something completely commercially unviable. But that can lead you to a new career. Who knows where it leads, no one could tell you: looking back, not even yourself!

You’re taking advice from a drunk man, but get a blue collar job for a year after you graduate and see how you feel. Four possibilities:

1. You’ll love it and keep working it.

2. You’ll hate it and have a newfound appreciation for your relative privilege in CS.

3. You’ll still be ambivalent and not know what to do with yourself because you don’t really know what you want.

4. You’ll combine skillsets and find avenues that others haven’t explored too much.

edit: no matter what the outcome is, you get to make OSHA jokes for the rest of your life.

A few thoughts.

Don't force yourself so much and just enjoy.

You feel the need to do a lot of different things but not finish them to a level you like. Some people are like that: they love to start ideas and solve problems, but have less interest in 'typing out the remainder'.

It can be good to plan life, but you might miss out on opportunities along the way.

One observation that opened my eyes: even without careful planning people succeed.

Had that feeling 20 years ago. Any non-professional act you do will be like a kata. Just implement new tech and learn old tech, that will be sufficient. If you want to get serious, you need to do it like you would work an actual job.

Side projects are a big thing for me... Recognise that it's okay to play around with an idea (or many ideas) for a bit and abandon it when you're bored. It's not a second day job so try to avoid creating pressure for yourself.

Chase after some physical performance goals, do it 3-4 days a week and let that be your outlet for perfectionism, betterment, etc. Meaning, give that feeling an outlet, and make it material. It's hard to not feel great satisfaction when you are making gains working out, swimming, etc. It gives you a place where it's pretty "easy" to chase performance and know what to do, and, at least for me, let's me feel "OK" about not knowing exactly what to chase after intellectually.

For better or worse, intellectual pursuits can be hard to come by, or hard to know how to start, etc. But saying "I want to get down to 12% bodyfat and put on 10lbs of muscle" is pretty easy to track, pretty easy to figure out, pretty easy to see the gains, and of course you feel fantastic after every single workout. At least I do.

I have a job that pays the bills and where I haven’t worked overtime in many years. I start small hobby projects because it’s fun, and I rarely finish them. Because starting a project is fun and finishing usually isn’t. And I do it - remember - because it’s fun.

If I’m going to start pressuring myself to finish hobby projects then it’s not fun any more. That’s work. Not a hobby.

Hobbies might be extra curricular activities to boost your resume for a tiny period before your first job. But once you are hired a) your hobby projects take a much smaller place on your list of achievements and b) your need your hobbies to disconnect from work.

Best advice for avoiding burnout is to switch jobs quickly if you are stressed over work. If you lose sleep over work it’s not worth it. If there is crunch time or expectations that you regularly work over 40 hours per week, get out. Find a job that doesn’t do that. It might not be in some sexy industry it could be in concrete manufacturing or an airline - but that’s the price you’ll have to pay.

Also, don’t be afraid to just take a hobby that doesn’t have a goal other than relaxing and disconnecting. Especially once you land a software job you’ll find that you’ll really want a hobby that isn’t anywhere near software.

Mentally: I have a therapist that I talk to once a month no matter what. Even if I don’t have anything really going on in my life, it is a good check-in. Through a monthly conversation, I can usually cut off falling into historically bad patterns of behavior.

Since you bring up side projects, I used to put so much pressure on myself to always have at least 1, if not 2, side projects that could be money making. In the last 5 years, I’ve given that up. The pressure, after work was done for the day, to be productive for 2 or 3 more hours was just “killing” me (slowly - I wasn’t exercising. I was eating fast food so I could get back in front of the computer). So I went cold turkey. If something is interesting, I’ll read about it. If it causes an itch, I’ll scratch it. But I don’t put any pressure on myself for set amount of time to look at it. 5 minutes one day, 2 hours the next. Doesn’t matter. As for the feeling of working on something better? I have that to. If something more interesting pops up, I move my time to it. But for that to work for me, I had to come to terms with that I’ll probably never finish anything. And that’s OK for me. I have plans for apps all the time. But the 2 that I actually built to completion? A budgeting app (when Simple bank shutdown) and a barbell app (calculates my warm up sets for me and which plate combinations to use).

Physically: Get a primary care physician. Get blood work and a physical every year. If you end up at urgent care or something else outside of your PCP, send them the records. If you like data, there is something magical about looking at your past blood work results and watching your diet and exercise change those numbers.

Move more. If you’re doing absolutely nothing, start with walking. Just you. Rain or shine. Cold or hot. Everyday. If you can make a habit out of walking, other physical habits are easier to form. I take 2 walks every morning. The first is with my incredibly skittish dog. We don’t walk far or fast. After I return her home, I go back out for my walk. Just me. No podcasts. No music. Just a brisk 1 mile every 15 minutes for 30 to 45 minutes. But don’t start there. Just go our your door, walk 10 minutes and turn around and walk back. The next day, add a minute. Don’t worry about distance or pace. Just get in the habit of going out your door and walking. Once I developed the habit for walking and learned to love how walking made me feel, I started adding simple workouts - push-ups and air squats. Eventually it lead to barbells. Your journey might go in a completely different direction. And the only other piece of advice I can give you - don’t follow fitness people on Instagram or YouTube (or any other social media). Those 30 second clips are their BEST workouts. They don’t show you the years of training they endured to get there.

I don’t. Unfortunately.

I see my former self in much of what you have written, and I still have those traits to a degree.

I have found men’s groups to be surprisingly helpful.

I also hew towards the Buddhist and Neo-Advaita spiritual traditions.

Wishing you good health and equanimity in the coming year.

For me the most important thing is to stay physically active.

In order: 1. Moving more means 2. Sleeping better means 3. Stressing less means 4. Eating well

Treat your brain and body as biological knowledge engines. Decades of research have shown how exercise, sleep, stress, and nutrition affect learning, memory, attention, and decision making.

Start with taking seriously how you feel. Professional athletes know they can’t train for more than a few hours each day or else they increase the risks of getting hurt. Be consistent in your efforts but not compulsive, life is a marathon not a sprint. Slow down and breathe to focus on your best efforts in small meaningful steps.

  - squat rack
  - 8 sqm proper rubber gym mats
  - a solid flat bench
  - 20kg premium Olympic bars (ball bearings just spin and spin)
  - 10kg Olympic EZY Bar (for arms)
  - 110kg of plates
  - plate holder (aka "spider"), quick locks

  - 360 Strength Heavy Duty Squat Rack, with spotter bars.
  - 360 Strength Olympic EZ Curl Bar (Nickel - Bushings)
  - 360 Strength PRO Olympic 20kg Barbell (Hard Chrome - Full Black - Bearings)
  - 1RM Commercial Flat Bench 1RM-CFB
  - 360 Strength STANDARD Weight Tree with Barbell Holder
  - 360 Strength Olympic Rubber Coated Weight Plate: 2x 1.25, 4x 2.5, 4x 5, 4x 10, 2x 20 kg.
  - 8x 15mm Command Classic Rubber Gym Flooring Black
  - 360 Strength Nylon Olympic Locking Collars (very quick and easy to lock one handed, moderate grip - great for curls, presses etc)
  - 360 Strength 360 Strength Aluminium Olympic Locking Collars (harder/two handed, very solid grip - great for deadlifts)
  - Since added: 25kg PRO HG Bumper Plates (1 pair)
  

My advice to my 22 year old self, in order of priority, would be:

1. Get financially literate. Before any "hobby projects" make sure your money is working for you.

2. Take care of yourself physically. Join a martial arts gym. It will give you a community "outside of programming", keep you fit and you will have the pressure to show up no matter what.

3. Don't forget the basics - data structures, algorithms & distributed systems. Most companies asks for this. It may be a FAANG impostor syndrome but it's there.

4. Keep work as work. Do not develop a "passion for your job". Herculean efforts developing a CRUD app will not translate easily to more money at another company (see #3).

5. Impostor syndrome is real. Do not fall for it.

Sometimes you have to crawl through a river of shit to come out clean on the other side. I have suffered from overachiever syndrome / high functioning assholeness for most of my life. Constant doing, constant striving, constant movement, rare moments of nothingness, rare moments of celebration. More hobbies than I can count. It all led to some decent career and life success. And also stress. And anger. And rage. And self-defeating patterns.

Eventually I began to learn how my mind works. Backed off the gas a bit. Took steps to do less, not more. Made a commitment to either go hard on an activity (new biz idea, project, hobby) or kill it. Focus became my north star. Free, open play with no agenda is my Atlantis.

Meditate. Therapy. White russians on a Tuesday morning. Read some Bukowski, some Vonnegut, maybe some Easton-Ellis.

The real breakthrough happened when I removed the attachment that had grown like an umbilical cord between me and work. I love work. I fear being anything less than perfect. Those were hard fucking opponents to tussle with. But I write this from the other side, and it's really comfortable here.

Frankly, I don't think there's any useful advice anyone can give you about how to work harder, how to balance side projects, how to deal with feeling lazy or overwhelmed which isn't going to end up with some form of "introspect your thoughts" either alone or with a therapist or a friend or psychedelic drugs. You don't need to choose better projects, you need to understand why you feel stressed and compelled to start and why your motivation fades. You don't need to work harder to beat laziness because you don't have laziness itself you have fear of laziness. You need to understand why you feel both constantly busy and burnt out and lazy at the same time. You don't need better scheduling to stop feeling overwhelmed, you need to understand why you feel overwhelmed when other people who do more don't feel that way, which is possibly driven by some hidden fear of letting people down or feeling like you have to add things you don't want into your todo list.

> "I feel like I always need to be doing something"; "I feel like everything I am doing has to be perfect"; "I like to take well thought out steps in anything I do".

Start with assuming a child is a blank slate, then these behaviours are things you learned. From your post they're making you unhappy. But you're keeping them which suggests you believe the alternatives are worse. I suggest you haven't considered this in years and that's no longer correct or never was. That you mis-learned these thought behaviours in childhood or the alternatives were bad for a child but as an adult you could deal with them, and you haven't reassessed why you think these things[1].

Question for yourself then is, what terrible thing do you fear happenning if you do the opposite of those things? If you stop doing things. If you make imperfect things. If you take thoughtless steps. The answers will likely be right there in your head hiding in plain site. They will be things like images of your dad telling everyone how he knew you were worthless, or your mother crying for 'no reason' but it's somehow your fault, or an image of your future as a drunken homeless person on the streets, or an intense shame for letting your country down, or etc.

The "downward arrow" technique might help you explore that, described in these two podcasts with text summaries:

https://feelinggood.com/2017/10/26/059-live-session-marilyn-...

https://feelinggood.com/2017/05/05/uncovering-self-defeating...

Or this text post:

https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/psyc...

The last thing you describe is "analysis paralysis", being unable to move until you have identified the perfect, unquestionably correct, nobody-can-criticise-this, no-waste, no-chance-of-failing move. It's similar thought behaviour, why do you need to avoid all those possible problems so intensely, what do you feel is so wrong with making a rushed mistake that you'd (overall) rather end up doing nothing and being miserable to avoid it?

> "I am finishing my bachelors in CS this year"

A couple of decades of casually reading self-help and mindfullness and similar resources has brought me to https://feelinggood.com/ and it's the first thing which cuts through the spirituali...

Man, it probably won't help, but I could have written that. I recognize myself in your description. I am working for 5 years and I burned out 8 months ago. Unfortunately I am still in.

I have no magical formula. What I can say is that done is better than perfect when it comes about Software Engineering (also applicable for other domains). You will have to fight against yourself and attempt to get things done before you lose motivation. Of course that won't be easy, specially if you are perfectionnist.

Don't hesitate to have break, don't hesitate to abandon projects for a time and resume later. Follow your inside will. Life is too short to be bored.

Don't stay at work late, even if you enjoy it. Always be looking for perfection is exhausting, and your team probably won't be as concerned ad you. Your managers can help you with good "definitions of done". Communicate with them.

Be careful and take care. Good luck :)

Physically condition yourself, enjoy quality sleep that is enough, observe the religion of your parents, study, learn and hopefully become wise, expose yourself to sunshine, eat high quality food, drink only water or wine, don’t do to others what you don’t want for yourself.

Edit: please, articulate why you downvote. If you are a nihilist atheist and can’t stand that somebody suggests religion, please say so.

Your reflection about your situation is awesome. Your questions will help you. However, as already mentioned, your problems and dilemmas are not unique. I see in you a young adult, learning to handle life and ambitions; and I think your questions and reflection about the topic will get you far.

So, actual advice:

First one: have patience. Don’t expect any big results, side projects etc. If you produce something worthwile, great, but don’t plan for it and expect it.

Second: Looking back on accomplishments tends to look impressive compared to looking at future plans. You cant do three big projects at the same time, and you might compare to other ppl who did several nice projects. But, they did’t do them at the same time - they probably did them over several years and focused on one project at a time. Maybe, back to the first point: don’t be ambitious here. Just do something fun.

Third: do something fun. When doing your masters degree, you have a lot of stuff you must do. For the projects in your spare time, do something _fun_, whereever that may lead you. I played a lot of World of Warcraft, at a time where I could be programming. But it was fun. Looking back, it really taught me invaluable lessons about communication, teamwork, high performance teams, motivation and leadership. These skills I employ in my current job (in some form). But from the outside, it might just seem like a waste of time. (Well, a lot of it was, but I spent a lot of time managing a top raid guild).

Fourth: perfectionism is great in a way, because you tend to produce results of really high quality. However, in my grown life, I have come to realize, that it is mostly a burden. Perfectionism is an enemy of balancing the effort-reward balance. E.g. doing a task quickly and “poorly” is often _far_ better than not doing it, because you don’t have time to do it perfectly. When you really think about it, then the best use of your time is not to do everything perfect, but to produce as much value as possible, whatever quality is required in the specific situation - and perfectionism is an enemy of this. It really can be a handicap.

So, just to finish up: your problems are not unique. I love that you are able to reflect on them - keep doing that. And, lower your ambitions and just do something fun in your spare time - the results, whatever they might be - will follow.

Lower the bar. With your overachieving personality, you'll be doing much more than many others even if you feel like you're not doing enough

Be terrible at something you enjoy and do it anyway because it's fun and stupid. It puts what actually being good at something looks like in perspective. The things you're good at, you probably don't struggle and suffer with unless you are in an elite/olympic level training program.

The things I'm best at, I got almost passively good at as the effect of decades of doing them because I enjoyed them and sought out challenges and mentoring. I'm a pretty good security architect but with the confidence of a CTO because I can tell really fast how good someone is at what they do, not because I'm the best in this field, but because I know what being good at something looks like as a result of my other interests. Nobody burns out from succeeding, so add unrelated things you enjoy to offset the things you struggle with, and the discipline on your time that doing things for yourself imposes pays huge passive dividends.

I also burn out periodically because high performance is less about linear productivity than managing work, which means being strategic and scaling the value you produce, and when that managing thread blocks, downtime is expensive and necessary, but that's just the cost of performance at that level.

If you're burning out, a) you probably aren't good enough at what you are doing that anyone will miss you if you aren't there, and b) your additional effort is past the point of diminishing marginal returns, so pay yourself some time and joy. It's like a power lifter injuring themselves just to make goal nobody else sees or cares about and costing themselves months of training to recover from it. Work smarter, and good luck. :)

Grats on the degree and all the best in your job hunt.

Personally I know my day is limited so I try to make 80% of my effort on things I love to do, and 20% on the things I don't enjoy that much. For example, doing the dishes, work, or exercise. I don't really enjoy those activities because I dislike the feeling of being sweaty, and work is honestly boring and meetings are awful, but I know they're necessary baseline activities and they don't require that much effort. So, there I just accept that I have to do it. That way, I don't care enough to let those things derail the rest of my attention during the day on things I really enjoy, such as working on my projects, reading books, cooking, or whatever.

Works well enough for me, but it's been rough in Covid because there's only so much you can do without regular human connection. I'm happy being alone and amongst loved ones, but there is an other half which wants to be amongst other people in the world whether that's at work, going to parties, traveling or just like walking around in my city and hitting up random food spots. Hopefully this new year is a return to regular style of being outside and doing stuff.

Exercise. Lots of it. I cycle, run, hike, and camp. Average 8 hours/week, sometimes much more. Keeps me physically fit, but also gives my brain something to do that’s in no way related to work. If I worked on side-projects a lot, I’d definitely burn out.

As others have said, eat well and exercise (sweat) which for me usually leads to good sleep which is also key.

Is it possible that part of your “burnout” is actually dissatisfaction with never finishing? If you expect you won’t finish then motivation to start may diminish. Pick something (one thing) and focus to finish. Learn to live with imperfection. Read about the idea of minimum viable products (MVP), and apply this concept to your projects. You will find satisfaction in finishing, and then motivation to start (and finish) the next. Yes finishing is hard, but then you will have a record of accomplishments and trust in yourself that you CAN finish. Slow down and work on one thing at a time. And finish.

There's a clear, direct correlation between my level of physical activity and my mental health. If I'm not active, I feel lazy, lethargic, and self-loathing. If I am active, I feel confident, energetic, and ambitious. It doesn't take a lot of activity; just 20-30 minutes of heart-pumping exercise a day.

Taking that a step further, the three keys to life balance seem to be, in this order: sleep, exercise, diet. Get enough sleep, get some kind of physical activity every day, and eat as well as you can, and you should feel pretty good, most days.

As far as side projects go, have you stopped to ask yourself _why_ you want to do them? Is it just an interesting diversion, or does it actually carry some kind of deeper meaning for you? It can be hard to be honest with ourselves, but I think if you can question your motivations, you may find that you're distracted by things that seem interesting on their face, but they aren't really connected to who you are or who you want to be.

Another thought, regarding perfectionism -- it seems to be a learned behavior. For me, it's a combination of two things. On the one side is a fragile self-image built up throughout childhood (I'm "smart" for my age) and feeling a deep need to preserve that image at all costs (if I make a mistake or fail, that's evidence that I and every adult who complimented me on the way was wrong). On the other side is the evil of comparison; venturing into an industry inundated with stories of explosive growth driven by infallible geniuses, I _have_ to measure up. If I throw myself at an idea and the idea or the execution fails, that's concrete evidence that I'm not of the same stock as the titans of my industry. Scary.

There are a few things you can do to combat this:

- Don't compare yourself with anyone else. It can't help you. You're only increasing the downside (failure means you're not good enough, while exceeding your idols would leave you feeling more empty than before).

- Realize that failure is like a forest fire – painful and hard to look at, but the best foundation for rich new growth. If you go out of your way to prevent it, you just make the inevitable disaster so much worse. Embrace it.

- Let go of your story about who you are and how your life "should" be. Speaking from personal experience, it's so easy to get attached to how things "should" go, that you lose sight of what's in front of you. If you can open yourself up to being wrong about who you are and what's important to you...well, you may actually find a much more interesting version of yourself along the way.

- Look for your "why." For a big portion of my career, I chased money. I chose projects I thought could make money, and I changed jobs chasing higher and higher compensation. I hustled and grinded, and in the end, I have little to show for it. It took me 10 years to realize that I would hate myself if I spent my whole life working on stuff I didn't really care about, just to make enough money to escape that hamster wheel and move to a better one. Why not just step off? Figure out what you actually care about, find a "why" that you can attach yourself to, and focus on that. Money is orthogonal to happiness. Sure, being broke can make you miserable. But, being rich won't make you happy. Spending your time focused on things that actually matter to you will. Find out what those things are, and cut out as much of the other bullshit you can.

- Cherish the process. Another thing that took me way too long to figure out was that outcomes never made me happy. There is no fulfillment in achieving outcomes; they are all rungs on a ladder. The true joy and fulfillment comes from loving the process. Be present and cherish the moment. Enjoy the work you are doing. Enjoy the recreation. Enjoy the conversations with people you care about. These things are not means to some important end, they are the important thing. And, if you find yourself...