It's the weekend, and I want to take a moment to remind you that it's okay to take a break.

I know a lot of us, especially those of us who write code for a living or even as a hobby, are used to burning the midnight oil. You get into a project, and it grabs hold of your brain like a Vulcan mind meld. Suddenly, it's 2 am and you're still debugging that one last form. You don't care if it's dinner time. You don't care if it's bedtime. Sometimes you don't even care if the sun's coming up. You are going to finish that project.

I've been like this since I was a kid. When I'm in the zone, I want to keep going. That kind of focus can be powerful. Sometimes it leads to breakthroughs. Sometimes it leads to brilliant ideas. And once in a while, that kind of sprint is okay. But if you live in that state too often, you are going to crash.

Burnout is real.

You might be thinking, "Well, I'm just doing what I love." And that's great. But even the things you love can drain you. Especially when you don't give yourself space to breathe. And I mean that not just mentally, but physically too.

I started working out seriously back in March, and for almost a month I didn't give myself a proper rest day. That is not a good idea. Your body needs rest just like your brain does. Even when you don't want to, you have to force yourself to slow down. Every three or four days of working out, I now make sure to take a rest day. At one point, my body basically went on strike and said "nope, unless you take a couple days off, we're not doing this anymore." I started to feel drained, tired, foggy. That's not sustainable.

Same thing goes with sleep. Sure, you might get away with four or five hours for a night or two, but if you keep that up, it's going to take a toll. You'll see it in your mood, your energy, your ability to focus. People around you wanting to kill you. Thank kind of stuff.

Same thing with eating. If you're trying to lose weight and you're cutting calories, that can work short term. But over time, your body will push back. It'll go into survival mode and say nope, I need some carbs or I'm going to start shutting systems down. That's why I always make sure that once a week I eat a solid meal and bring my calories back up - sometimes even over target - just to keep my metabolism healthy and my energy up.

Even back in high school, when I played Dungeons and Dragons, we used to run marathon sessions that started Friday after school and went straight through to late Sunday night. And by the end of it, we were so fried we couldn't think. Strategy was out the window. Should I attack the goblins, or solve the puzzle the DM just gave me? I don't know, I'm too tired to think. You can kind of pull that off when you're sixteen. Try doing it at fifty and you're going to need a nap and a heating pad.

And if you're doing that kind of round-the-clock work for someone else, for a job, that's when you really need to stop and reassess. No job is worth sacrificing your health. No project is worth giving up your sleep, your meals, or your peace of mind*.

Rest is not laziness. It's maintenance.

Even the best starships need to dock for repairs. Even warp cores need to cool down. The crew gets shore leave for a reason. If you are always running your engines in the red, eventually something is going to give, and it is usually something important.

So here's your permission slip for the weekend: take a break. Step away from the screen. Go outside. Spend time with the people who make you feel human. The code will still be there when you get back.

And who knows... maybe the answer to that bug that's been haunting you will come to you in the shower, or while you're walking the dog, or sipping a drink by the pool, or where I get most of my best ideas - on the porcelain throne. Sometimes you just need to walk away.

Recharge. Reset. Return strong.

Contrary to what Kurgan said in Highlander, it's NOT better to burn out than to fade away**. I'll take a nice slow fade to black over a fiery burnout any day. LOL.

LLAP/RR

* Working for someone else definitely should give you pause to work crazily like this. You should absolutely take breaks and try not to work when you're outside the office. However, as someone who's been self-employed since 1994, I can tell you that it's not easy working for yourself either, because there is no work to leave when you have your own business. I'm constantly working. Anytime I have a few free minutes, like if I'm sitting in the waiting area of a doctor's office, I've got my phone in my hand going through blog comments or customer service emails. So it's even harder if you work for yourself to try to step away, but sometimes you just have to force yourself.

** Yes, I know Kurgan was quoting lyrics from Def Leppard, and they were quoting a song from Neil Young, and yes, I had to look that last one up. :)