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?
I used to be just like you, I worked for a small startup, I was in essence their only programmer. I considered the owners my friends. Then one day I got sick and send a message saying I wasn’t going to be able to go on that day, one of the owners came in that day and asked for me (just because he found it weird that I wasn’t there) and another one of the owners threw a tantrum at me over email saying I couldn’t just decide not to go, that I either took a dr note or the day would be discounted from my pay. That did it for me, in that moment I realised that the weekends and extra hours I had given them were worthless, I went back a few days later with the Dr note and my resignation. On my next job I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t take work home, they forced clock in and clock out times, so the moment I clocked out I forgot everything about the work, and if ever I started to think about it I would remind myself that they don’t care.
I work for a much better company now, and as a general rule as soon as the work is done I’m done with work, there are exceptions when things need to happen before a certain date, but I also get TOIL or something in exchange.
If the owners were your friends they would have recognized how pivotal you were and given you significant equity. I’m sure you already know, but it is possible to be friends with the owners of the company you work for, but friends value each other and wouldn’t let their friends work that hard without making sure they’re properly compensated with stock, so proper reward and friendship go hand in hand, and friendship is not a replacement for compensation no matter how good of friends you are.