Anxiety is a serious issue, and you can never be too careful. Every little thing you can do to help yourself will have a huge positive impact on your health. I believe this text will be a bit short, but it's about something very important that I learned from a recent experience (from the day before yesterday, actually).

I'm a programmer. As a programmer (other programmers here will understand well), I end up being extremely rushed sometimes: there are many projects to work on, from different contexts, and everything is needed yesterday. To make matters worse, I have a bad habit of always wanting to try to solve any problem that appears nearby. So, it's not enough that I already have countless tasks: every day I go and pick up another one.

The thing is, we all have a limit, and I came close to that limit last weekend. But I have good (wonderful) friends, and four of them came to me and (without knowing anything) told me the same thing: "Gui, slow down."

How could you hear the same advice four times and not get the message? I had to slow down.

But that's not exactly what I came to talk about. It happened that, reflecting on this habit of mine of collecting more and more responsibilities (the main reason for being constantly rushed), I realized some interesting things, and these are what I'd like to share with you.

So, if you're the type that's always going at full speed, I'd like you to read this and, if you want, we could exchange ideas at the end.

Let's go.

First: things to do will never stop coming

A mistake I made many times: "If I focus just on this task for a few days, it'll be done and I'll be at peace." So I focus and, indeed, I finish it.

Then another task appears. And what did I think? "If I focus again, all day long, I'll kill the task and be good."

The thing is, it's a vicious cycle. Tasks never stop coming, and the more time you dedicate, the faster you finish and the faster another task comes.

Second: without organization, I complete nothing

Another mistake I always made: I'm working on three projects. When working on the first project, I didn't concentrate on it and didn't finish everything I had to do. I ended up having to use time from the second project to finish. But then, it made things even more complicated for the second project, which was already behind from the previous day. What do I do? I don't work on the third project and use its time to try to do everything I had to do from the second task.

See the snowball forming?

We need to be firm with the schedule we set for ourselves. I know it can't be 100%. During this quarantine, I'm working from home and living with other people. It's really very difficult to set a schedule and be 100% focused during that time.

However, at least the start and end times are very important. Because it's very easy to find yourself in a scenario where you no longer have a life, and you're totally dedicated to work.

And this lifestyle isn't healthy for anyone.

Third: I needed to define priorities

I love to chat. If it were up to me, I'd spend the whole day exchanging ideas with my friends. The problem is that if I chat while I should be working, I won't complete anything I had to complete, and this contributes to the second problem.

Speaking for myself, as a programmer: if I'm concentrated on solving a problem and I see a notification on my phone, two things always happen:

• Curiosity will be screaming to know what it is;

• I'll stop, read, chat for about 10 minutes;

• I'll go back to the code and need to retake the entire line of reasoning (sometimes it takes a while);

And all this happens because of just one notification.

So, what have I been doing? I leave my phone out of sight. However, since I need to use WhatsApp for one of the projects, I open it from time to time (when possible) to talk to who I need to talk to.

Why is this important?

On Saturday, I joined a hackathon, even without knowing how I would have time to work on it (I was already calculating the minimum hours of sleep I need to not die). On Sunday, when I received the fourth message about "slowing down," I decided that the best thing was to quit the event and leave the team. It was more a matter of health than lack of will, because I was crazy to participate.

When I went to talk to the team leader, he was super understanding, agreed that slowing down was indeed the best thing (would he be the fifth to tell me this?) and shared a personal story.

He, like me, was rushed. Taking on countless things to do, all at the same time, working all the time. But when he realized he needed to slow down, it was already a bit late (though earlier than many developers). Today he needs to take medication (light) to help him slow down.

What I want to say is: it might seem silly to think about slowing down. Many people puff their chests to say they don't need to, that they can handle demands, pressure, and stress. The problem is that when you realize you need to take care of yourself, you've already crossed the line a bit.

Anxiety is a serious issue, and you can never be too careful. Every little thing you can do to help yourself will have a huge positive impact on your health. So, now I ask you: how about slowing down?

Well, that's it from me. I hope you liked it and, if you want to chat, just call me on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramosht/), as I said, I love to chat. God bless and take care!