How do you take care of yourself?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tend to your personal relationships like a garden, especially when you're younger since it becomes much more difficult to establish meaningful relationships the older you get. It's only my experience, but that is my greatest regret. I think the less important things like career are more easily tackled with a solid foundation of personal relationships.

Also, I've found striving for perfection is fool's gold. Yeah, you may be "that person" that friends/family/colleagues will love name-dropping you every chance they get. The others will probably care little that you're an expert and may even resent you for it.

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!

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.

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.

There are two things:

- Life is not about you, it's about other people. Focus on other people and move from I to we. The biggest manifestation of this is to find a significant other, commit with (jointly) to building a family, and get children.

- Get over yourself. You are not special, you do not have a manifest destiny, no one will remember your achievements when you are gone. If you are one in a million then there are about 10,000 other people like you in this world today. Have an ordinary life with ordinary pleasures like walking, owning a dog, gardening, reading easy fun novels, watching tv. Make reasonable targets at work that involve 40 -50 years of turning up and punching in. Not only do you not need to excel, you cannot excel. Live with it.

Literally - live.

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.

A few thoughts.

1. For me, being physical is important. It isn’t for everyone, but if it is for you, don’t ignore it. It brings perspective, clarity, and renewed energy.

I don’t enjoy the gym rat thing, though. For me, I’ve really loved tennis & climbing. I set myself goals in each and work up to them. I use them as toys to work on mental fitness. I’ve been surprised at how much it has helped in work & life.

2. I’ve worked with a bunch of very smart people right out of school who worry about perfection. One thing I have learned that’s helpful to point out is that the school format is great for teaching a lot of information fast, and measuring a certain type of achievement, school is not life. In fact, it’s counterproductive to work/adult life. A perspective shift is needed. Think of this as a developmental phase of life. Most people experience it.

In school, you are being trained to be a perfectionist. You get one shot, and then are judged, with finality. In this game, it’s worth it to overinvest in everything to maximize your one-shot score.

In life, you can generally control the clock, and the world offers multiple rounds. So, you can play with an idea over a long time, iterating it towards more and more usefulness / perfectness. Note that the real world is much messier than school, and often the problem itself changes over time. It’s important to let go of the idea that you’ve been trained on, that there is one perfect answer to each question.

“Perfect is the enemy of done” is a great quote here.

—

For your side projects, if I were you, I’d pick any one and just finish it. Not perfectly, just done. Enjoy the process, appreciate the result. Don’t judge yourself on the outcome as much as the process you used to get there.

Good luck!

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.

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.

What you describe frankly sounds a lot like you have something like ADHD. Its not something you should let somebody diagnose you with over the internet, but its really worth looking into with a professional if you have similar suspicions. Here's why:

1. Its one of the more addressable maladies. With good CBT, medication, and habit formation, most people seem to receive dramatic improvements in their quality of life.

2. Understanding your brain and its tendencies can be extremely liberating. Instead of feeling guilt and shame about your choices and work habits, you can look at them objectively and mitigate as you see fit.

It took me until I was a decade out of college while seeking help for depression that a psych picked up on some cues from me and gave me an assessment and diagnosis. I wish that would have happened earlier. If that isn't what's going on, it would be a great thing to cross off as well.

anxiety about what you aren't doing is one of the curses of living in the modern world. The anxiety of too many choices and what is an incredible amount of freedom to do most anything. What I think makes the difference is you need to put becoming goal oriented really high on your priorities. Finishing things is really important. If you find that hard, practice it. Start small, build up. While practicing becoming goal oriented, blind commitment to it is useful. Later, blind commitment to goals may not be sensible, and you may shift or abandon your goals. But this should be done when you are confident in your ability to set goals and achieve them. I weirdly had to relearn this, when I was young in the 80s and 90s, I just naturally did this. Then in the 2000s, with more awareness of what everyone else was doing, I became anxious about my choices, and felt everything I was doing could be done better. It was actually through doing Brazilian jiujitsu, BJJ, that I relearnt the importance of small goals, incremental improvement. Working with what you have got. The messiness of real life engagement compared to "practice". (BJJ is an excellent way to look after your physical well being as well). Another key thing is, whenever you use the word "should" (as in I should be doing X, or I should be doing Y). Quite often baked into that is some kind of external pressure (sometimes unconscious) to be doing something. If that "should" is causing you anxiety, there's a chance that actually you don't really want to do the thing you think you should. So pay careful attention to "should".

Also, some words of reflection from one of the great stoic philosophers...

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary. – Seneca

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.

Lots of great suggestions here already.

One thing which has really helped me over time is finding focus amid the many motivations we all have. There's a really pleasant clarity which comes from knowing what I should be doing now.

Easy to say, but how? Personally I've found systems like "Getting Things Done" (the classic book) helpful - it emphasises getting things out of your head and into a trusted system. It doesn't even need to be GTD, I've moved closer to a "bullet journal" approach, as it's simpler. You don't want to overcomplicate things by being drawn too far into the productivity rabbit hole, as that carries its own time and complexity cost!

Some core elements of any good approach IMHO:

- a simple system you trust for tracking what's important (even if a prioritised list you carry over each day). This should contain simple meaningful, actionable steps. When things are "out there" it somehow feels easier to manage then when it's floating in my head.

- knowing the time cost of things. I saw a good video which suggested that if your life is divided into time buckets, then if one bucket grows too much (eg work) then another had to shrink (sleep, family, rest, etc). Quite an impactful perspective.

- keeping a "personal roadmap" for some longer range planning, but knowing it will probably shift as you go. Keep your "roadmap" in mind, review it consciously but don't be afraid to push things back or reprioritise.

- keep up an exercise plan (as others have said) - maintain your hardware!

- if you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed take a step back. You won't perform well in that state and you'll do a better job tomorrow. Or try to get help from others.

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 :)

The best investment you can ever make in yourself is to find out how your mind works and why you feel the way you feel. The skills you learn by doing this have an immeasurable compounding interest if applied daily.

As you become better at caring for yourself it is that you will feel more and more liberated and this will eventually enable you to follow through with things and achieve greatness (whatever that means for yourself).

Maybe start with this and I think all the other decisions and questions will resolve themselves naturally.

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.

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.

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. :)

Exercise regularly. Stay away from sugar. Talk to people and hear what they have to say. Learn how to recognize and acknowledge your fears, but don't let them rule you. Foster a belief in something greater than yourself. If you drink or smoke or do drugs, do they make you weaker or stronger? Be honest with yourself. Life is short; eat desert first.

You could probably benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. Through it you will learn things you can do to improve your situation.

I can tell you that one of my "answers" to half-finishing a lot of projects was committing to only one project at a time until it was done. My perfectionism and procrastination would make it take an extremely long time. It felt bad that I wasn't getting them done faster, but I eventually succeeded and learned some stuff. Would have gone a lot faster if I had not chosen to go my own way and do something different, or if I didn't do other things with my time (cooking, watching TV, working on a different project that was time sensitive).

But that's life. Things don't happen the way you want, they happen the way they happen. Accept the imperfection, the waste of time, the lack of accomplishment. Life doesn't get better if we stress out over things not working out. We don't win any prize for being perfect, either.

Basics first: The brain is an organ. Physical health and brain health and mental health are deeply interconnected. Find a physical activity that you can do several times a week with minimal motivation. Bonus points if you get friends into the same activity, or the activity is something like a martial arts gym. Accountability to others is an incredibly powerful motivation. Use it for both long term habits (daily fitness routine), and one time large goals (I'll lose 50 lbs this year or I own my friend $200).

Optional but valuable: learn how to cook [healthy] food that tastes good. This plays into fitness, and also can become a hobby. At a minimum learn 1-2 dishes suitable for bringing to a party.

This last one took me the longest: Find out how to truly relax. This is where it comes full circle, and you learn to use your thoughts to control the body. The Reveri app hypnosis routines were helpful to me along this journey.

Why we should feel sorry for High Achievers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmcM6InBjM4

The people who are "crushing it", constantly in the news and making lots of money, may very well be less happy than you.

Making physical things really helped me. I started building speaker cabinets. It’s been an incredible source of joy. Making something in the physical world really is a great way to feel good, especially when most of your work is making things appear on a screen.

Physical activity is also a must. exercise is essential, it really is. Walks, running, the gym, a sport. Whatever. It really really helps.

Taking a a step back and comparing yourself to other people can also really help to put your situation in a better perspective. The average person is doing physical labor to put food on the table. If you can make money siting down indoors and doing something a tiny bit interesting you are very well off. Be grateful.

Lifelong struggle my friend. But you are young so start good habits now.

//Body

Find things you like to do and do it. Every day. Mix it up. Have fun. Running, lifting, rec or social adult sports leagues, if you are into that thing. If you are having fun you will keep up with it.

// Mind

Read and then read some more. Again, do what you enjoy doing. Don’t feel like you have to do something or that if you bounce off something it hadn’t been worthwhile. Just designate X amount of time per day for yourself. Doesn’t have to be a lot.

If you work full time and then do side projects you will inevitably burn out. Hell, if you just work full time you will inevitably burn out. It happens to everyone. Burn out is a signal to mix things up.

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.

Don't worry about uncertain things, which might not in the end require worrying.

When I was younger I was stressed about way too many IFs, but especially in recent years I try to force myself to not think about things which are not certain to happen in the end, so they are waste of your energy and stressful.

Also related - don't take things too seriously, it must be difficult to accept for perfectionist even half assed work will do it same as perfect work, but it's reality and only one hurting with this it's yourself. These is related to priorities and will be difficult, if work is your biggest priority and you don't have kids or some better hobby.

>> So I feel like I always need to be doing something and then when I do something I feel like I should be doing something else that is "better"

Keep a journal or sketchbook where you right down the ideas first as they occur to you, including notes on level of effort and resources required. Then avoid starting work on an idea that has not been in the journal for at least three months. As you actually work on something you will of course have ideas for something better to work on, but right it down in the journal and come back to it in three months. Ideas that still interest you after three months will be easier to stick with.

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.

I have similar problems in that I start a lot of projects but only 'finish' some - in that they find some natural resting point. In my job I grind but for work that is just for me I stop when I stop having fun.

For self care I try to work in strength or cardio training daily. Grinding through training or going for a hike with a weighted backpack sucks but 'grinding' here tends to translate into staying power when 'grinding' elsewhere and you can easily titrate the difficulty with the weight/incline/distance. Building discipline is like a muscle - it has to be exercised.

For the first time since I started doing this 10 years ago; I’ve made a conscious effort to remove Teams from my phone, stop working at 5 (or whatever), and not bother with work until it’s time to start. I also make sure I take time off; getting a limited-vacation job has helped most with this.

I’m at peace with where I am currently and I’ve found there’s more inner peace with who I am more than ever.

So much of my life isn’t about what I do for work. It took me too long to realize this.

It’s just a tool I use in my life. It’s not the tool in my life.

Learn how to say no. The easiest way to get overwhelmed and on your way to a bad mental state is to say yes to everything people ask of you. Learn how to say no to people and your life will be so much easier.

Related to that is to learn how not to give a fuck about anything. The trick there is to learn when to turn that ability on and off. Think of fucks as a limited quantity. If you give a fuck about everything, you won’t have enough fucks to give when it really matters. Conserve your fucks jealously.

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 spiritualism and mysticism and takes it to a practical computer-person style "thought debugging". All the podcasts are free, the book ("Feeling Great") isn't, but all the content is on the website.

I recommend anyone and everyone to check it out.

It's based on roughtly the pattern: "The way you think drives how you feel about things. You learned how to think as a child, by imitation, without any planning, with mistakes, hence you feel weird and bad about a lot of things. Debug how you think and you'll feel better. Step 1. measure how you feel about a specific moment. Step 2. study yourself and see what that thing is protecting you from and why it helps. Step 3. try techniques to change how you think and feel. Step 4. measure how you feel again, to tell if it worked or not".

Listening to a few dozen hours of Feeling Good Podcast is my suggestion of what people should do as a New Year's Resolution.

[1] NB. removing the compulsion to do things doesn't leave you doing nothing, it leaves you free from compulsion, not free from doing things you want to do. Removing the fear of laziness doesn't make you lazy, it means you can relax when tired without constant low-grade anxiety.

>How do you avoid burnout and what do you do when you have burnt out?

I've been burnt out since 2018. If you find a remedy let me know. Everything sucks.

I listen to How of Business podcast with David Lopez. He did an episode on Overcoming Perfectionism with Audrey Holst. Perhaps it will help. Here’s a helpful episode https://www.thehowofbusiness.com/391-audrey-holst-overcoming...

Cigarettes, whiskey, and far too much sex. This thing is a one way runaway freight train.

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.

> So I feel like I always need to be doing something and then when I do something I feel like I should be doing something else that is "better"

I know that feeling from when I studied. What helps is to clearly set yourself time slots for work (studies, projects,...) and play (meeting friends, doing sports, gaming,...). I've been most productive on days where I either had deadlines to meet or some fun activities in the evenings to look forward to. Avoid „analysis paralysis” and the „dark playground” [1].

> I would also consider myself a perfectionist, so that makes me feel like everything I am doing has to be perfect [...] I like to take well thought out steps in anything I do [...] but sometimes I feel like that holds me back from actually doing the thing I am thinking about and lead to no progress again.

Try to get over that mindset. Embrace the pareto principle (80:20 rule) instead. Done is better than perfect. Have a bias for action, for just doing things and embracing failure instead of overthinking. Applies to both personal and professional life.

> I find side projects to be fun, but motivation to continue working on them dies off within a week or two

If you really want to have a side project that will keep you engaged over a longer time, don't do „portfolio projects” or TODO examaple apps. Instead, try maintaining an existing project that actually has some users. Getting feedback from real users is really motivating, even if the project just has a few dozen stars. It's also a better preparation for your first job, because you'll most like get onboarded on an existing codebase instead of working on a greenfield project.

Build up a regular workout routine. Make it a habit so that at some point you don't have to force yourself to do it but you're the kind of person who simply does it. As a bonus, workouts in the morning provide a lot of mental clarity for the whole day.

If doing CS/studies stuff is easy for you but socializing is difficult, work on being social and enjoying to make friends and talk to people. To me, having a partner and some good friends provides a lot happiness and burnout prevention.

Don't obsess about your studies. You'll need the degree as entry ticket, a good final grade is useful. But nobody in the industry cares about which courses you took.

[1]: https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...

I'm adhering to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber.

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

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

what I do every day: 1) meditation 2) stretching or exercising with resistance bands 3) manual lymph drainage massage 4) strict diet with carefully calculated calories intake and carbs-fats-proteins ratio 5) walk 10km(part of it is a walking meditation) 6) studying something that keeps challenging my mind(currently it's Game Theory Optimal in poker) 7) sleep at least 8 hrs

as a result, no time for burning out

When you start working professionally. You need to learn to say no without saying no.

All that stuff will be there tomorrow and most of it can wait.

I cycle thousands of KM per year. I'm learning spanish. Technology is one part of my life among many others.

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 doing work you can’t connect to, or buying stuff you don’t like, or engaging with people you don’t appreciate, stop. How lucky are we to have an unprecedented level of autonomy and control over our lives? Why should we spend it doing things we can’t enjoy?

I don’t. Unfortunately.

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.

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.