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Design engineers: Can you shut off your brain during non-work hours?
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TimNJ:
Greetings,

For lack of a better name, I’ve been in a “EE design lead” role for the last four years.

While I love the nitty gritty, I find it extremely difficult to shut my brain off during non-working hours. I’m still early in my career, turning 29 this year, so maybe it is something I need to learn and to actively work on.

Up to a certain complexity, many engineering projects are lead by one main designer who guides/steers the development based on his/her analysis/projections/imagination/feelings(!). This often puts a lot of burden on one person to figure out how to best do something.

Often this obsession over some project detail spills over into non-working hours. For example,  as I take a bite of my lasagna at dinner, I’ll think “Where the hell am I going to squeeze that heatsink?” or “Hmm would a simple little PMOS circuit do the trick there” or insert a million other things.

I’ve noticed other lead engineers, including my ex-boss, seem to have this tendency too. (Sending emails at 3am with answers presented to him in a dream.) No shade there at all; he was an extremely effective engineer and did not seem to bother him.

I just wonder: Are there those of you out there in “intense” design lead positions who can turn your brains off when you’re not on the clock? Is that something you learned or is that just who you are?

Thanks,
Tim

DavidAlfa:
Not an engineer here but I also have these issues.

"Hmm how could put that motor in that small space"
"What could I do to keep x thing going while stopping the MCU core"
"Tomorrow I'll check the voltages at x y z points, the issue must be there"

I find it more like a curse than a good thing, sometimes I can't sleep well because my damm head keeps rolling.

The problem is too much anything causes obsession.
A weekend, few beers, fixing car stuff and some barbecue, I don't even think in that.
But when it becomes your daily activity for too long amd you don't compensate with other things, it happens.
Heavy exercising helps a lot!
CatalinaWOW:
I've been retired for more than a decade and still haven't gotten rid of the habit.  When working I could shut off during regular non-working, non sleeping hours as long as I was fully occupied with sports, family or volunteer activities, but would always wake up in the middle of the night and work through whatever the issues of the day were.  Didn't get of bed, just lay there with my eyes closed and thinking for one to three hours.  That habit persists, itt is just different topics.
Bud:
Never take work home. Learn to draw the line. At my current workplace we have official "Right to disconnect" policy. It explicitly  disallows work related calls and emails after hours unless you are in an overtime paid support role.
DavidAlfa:
This is not "right to disconnect", have you read anything?  :-//
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