My 3 strategies to manage my workload (before reaching burnout in Big Tech)

Number 3 is my favorite

How many times have you clicked “save” today?

Before I had to save all documents, all files of code.

Now my docs are auto-saved somewhere in the cloud. My code is saved the moment I switch focus outside of the editor.

But my brain still doesn’t have an auto-save functionality.

This is a problem in two ways

1. On one hand, there are things I forget.

2. On the other, my brain keeps a loop running to try not to forget.

This happens to bartenders, they keep the orders in their brains until they fulfill them.

In the frantic context-switching environment of the workplace, our brains become a mess of things we try not to forget. This effect, the Zeigarnik effect, is draining our energy little by little.

Here are some guiding principles I use to navigate better the work environment.

#1 Reduce breadth, increase depth 🤿

There is a saying that buying a home comes with a lot of hidden costs.

Well, work comes with a lot of administrative overloads: meetings, emails, documents, and slack conversations. They are a tax we have to pay to do the work that delivers real value.

I prefer a small number of big rocks over an enormous number of small pieces.

This is something I have realized as I worked in teams of different sizes. The teams with fewer people have fewer ongoing projects, allowing me to keep up with reviewing all commits and attending all project meetings

On bigger teams, the number of open projects grows until you can’t keep up.

I encourage you all to think about a time you felt you had your work under control. The highest job satisfaction I have had was with teams of 6-7 engineers.

While you can’t control the number of people on your team, you can decide the small portion of projects you’ll focus on, and the other projects you acknowledge you won’t have all the context.

#2 Work on activities that compound 🌲

I decided I wanted to improve the skill of writing. So I started writing this newsletter.

Writing is a skill I can continue improving ad infinitum. I can close the newsletter and write somewhere else. This post is not a lost effort, no matter what my future looks like.

Because writing creates a long path ahead of me, I don’t have to jump from one thing to another.

I can focus on making the writing sustainable instead of rushing it and burning it out. It’s a core skill valuable for me in many alternative futures. It gives me optionality.

In tech, it’s easy to jump into the hot trend of the moment. You want to become an AR/VR engineer. Then you want to be a blockchain developer and now all of those are hopeless and the only salvation is becoming an AI engineer

That will only create a sense of urgency, and unrealistic expectations, and build burnout.

We can’t predict what the future will look like. But instead of jumping around, dedicate yourself to one thing. The future way of doing things will be different, but if you stick to one thing companies will still need in the future, you’ll adapt to the tooling of the moment.

Once you find these core skills, dedicate more time to them and less to the administrative tax of managing multiple projects in parallel.

You’ll feel real progress in one thing, instead of zero progress in multiple things.

#3 Hit CTRL+S / CMD+S 💾

It’s 6 p.m. and you are planning to leave the office and end your day.

But many things are going on. You have a couple of Slack conversations open, a few unread emails, one of your commits is under review and you are engaging in reviews from others.

Your brain is looping these topics to ensure you won’t forget.

Because we fear forgetting.

You won’t fear it if you know where to find it.

Write down all the topics you have and flush your brain from them. I do this before lunch and at the end of the workday.

My team works in two time zones and the only overlap is my afternoons. This means after lunch, I have back-to-back all my team meetings. With this process, After all my meetings I can resume my work where I left it.

It also means I can enjoy my lunch.

🎯 Conclusion

Nobody is coming to save you from the feeling of exhaustion at work.

Since it’s your responsibility, you should be free to choose your actions to tackle it.

Our brains are primitive and they don’t have auto-save.

You’ll sleep better at night if you flush your brain from open loops.

The principles of this post are heavily influenced by the countless hours I have listened to Cal Newport’s podcast and his latest book Slow Productivity

👏 Weekly applause

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