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?
Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but… If you’re trying to hold your unfinished work in your head, then it’ll hound you whenever you aren’t working. So get it out of your head. Write it down.
Just mind dump into a text file or email to yourself or calendar event (for Monday morning) or sticky note or whatever works for you. Get down everything you can think of that’ll need your attention the next time you’re working.
Then, forget about it. Now that you have it captured somewhere, you can stop thinking about it until Monday morning or whatever. If you didn’t capture it, your brain won’t let you stop thinking about it. But now, present you knows that past you has teed things up for future you, so there’s no need to remain preoccupied.
You’ll know right away if this approach is right for you. If you feel a sense of relief after getting your mind dump out, then you’re onto something.
I do this, I dump everything into notepad ++ files, and the forget it. Todos, meeting notes, SQL queries, reminders, contact info, you name it. Screw OneNote, np++ is king.
Yeah, it can be super simple. Better if it is, really.
This is absolutely the right approach. It creates a mental safety net so that your mind feels like it can let go, and as a result you do. After that it’s just a trickle of occasional new thoughts, as opposed to continuous storm. Wonderful approach, can’t recommend it enough
“Mental safety net” is a perfect way to put it. You don’t have to keep constantly resurfacing the same thoughts over and over so as to not forget them.