After getting COVID, I unfortunately developed a form of Long COVID marked by chronic fatigue. During that time, I became much more sensitive to changes in my mind and body, and that also made it easier for me to notice how much strain our everyday habits can put on us. When we’re healthy, we may not feel it, but over the years, that strain is bound to show up in one way or another. I had already experienced overload before COVID, and Long COVID helped me understand why.
You don’t have to go through the same pain I did to recognize these problems. I’ve written about how I became overloaded at work and recovered from it in a book called The Overloaded Programmer: Stop Running Your Whole Life on Your Brain.
I want to start by talking a little about why I wrote this book.
There was a time when I worked at a company during the day, then came home, had dinner, and worked on a side project with some friends. Saturdays and Sundays were much the same, so the weekend was basically another two workdays. I was very interested in the project and happy to put time into it, but gradually, weekends barely felt like weekends anymore, and I felt tense all the time. Later, thinking became harder, my mind felt foggy, and I never felt properly rested, but I didn’t take it very seriously at the time. I thought I was just tired and would feel better after a while.
After going through similar experiences a few times, I began looking more closely at what I was actually doing each day: writing code and solving problems at work, then continuing to study and work on projects afterward. When I got tired, I would lie down and scroll through my phone, reading the news, watching short videos, or researching something that interested me. I had left my desk, but my brain still wasn’t getting a real break.
There were also some drains on my energy that were harder to notice. As programmers, we’re good at analyzing problems: when there’s a bug in our code, we look for the cause and work through it step by step until the code runs properly. That habit can carry over into life too, so when we’re upset, we want to work out exactly why; when we’re worried about the future, we want to examine every possible path; and when something about our lives feels wrong, we try to figure out what else needs adjusting. I did this a lot myself.
For example, when I felt lonely, I would search for answers and analyze the problem, trying to work out how to stop feeling that way. I found plenty of advice, but I wasn’t spending any more time with people. Once I put my phone down, I was still on my own, and the next time I felt bad, I went looking for answers again. Analyzing the problem gave me a sense that I was doing something about it, but if I stopped there, very little changed in real life, and I used up time I could have spent resting or taking action.
When AI came along, it became even easier to get caught in this process, because I could ask about anything on my mind and get a reply right away, with one question leading to another. Sometimes I only meant to look into a new feature, but ended up researching its use cases, syntax, and how it was implemented. The same thing happened with everyday life: there was always one more thing to analyze. I gradually realized that even “trying to get better” could keep draining my energy.
So I started making changes to my daily life, setting some boundaries around work and screens and making time when I didn’t have to keep solving problems. I did some housework, went for walks, listened to music, and spent time with people. Even if there were things I hadn’t figured out, I tried leaving them for a while and doing the small things right in front of me instead, which seemed ordinary but gave me a real sense of satisfaction. If we always feel there are more important problems to research, features to finish, or things to think through, everyday life keeps slipping further and further down the list of priorities, leaving us feeling empty.
Of course, making changes didn’t go especially smoothly for me. I once planned out a whole new daily routine: when to go to bed and get up, when to work, when to exercise, and when to do housework. I was very motivated while making the plan, but once I tried to follow it, I found there was too much to change at once and couldn’t keep it up, so the plan itself became another burden. Later, I began adjusting just one small part of my day at a time, keeping that going until it felt fairly easy before adding more. I still slipped back into old habits sometimes, but I would gradually work my way back.
These experiences are all in the book too.
At the beginning of the book, I describe how I gradually became overloaded and the drains on our energy outside work that are easy to overlook. The middle part covers rest, stopping points, and how to make more time for things in the real world, while the final part looks at the obstacles we encounter when making changes: why we struggle to do things even when we know we should, and how to keep going once we’ve started.
If you also love technology and enjoy learning, creating, and solving problems, I hope this book helps you keep doing those things and still have enough energy left after work to do other things, spend time with people, and enjoy your life. That’s what I most want to share through this book.
Book link: Amazon