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It seems we can all relate, so I'll share my version of this as well. I'm not concerned with social media or Hacker News or whatever mainly because I remember the even worse crap I used to waste time reading before I learned of HN.

My problem is control. I had a side project I started in May and I worked on it roughly 16 hours a day, every day for ~6 weeks with only one or two hour breaks to eat and exercise. When I finished the project, I went back to my 9-5 job like nothing happened. I've had similar "episodes" of grinding before, but not quite as extreme.

Since then I haven't had the motivation to spend more than a few hours on anything outside of my job. The thing I want most is to control this. It would be a superpower.

Instead I spend most of my free time reading random shit on hacker news or Twitter. And next time I binge on work, it will probably be something silly like mining crypto on a thermostat.




If you are doing the same thing in your spare time that you do for the day job then isn't burnout inevitable?

I can't help feeling most of us would be better off doing something physical in our spare time.




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