The Spiral Begins
"Just 10 minutes" — the greatest lie I've ever told myself.
One second, I'm deep into my code, mentally wrestling with a bug that's refusing to die. So I do what any normal developer would do… I convince myself I deserve a tiny break.
I get up, stretch, maybe grab some water, then boom — the phone enters the chat. That innocent "lemme check one notification" quickly spirals into a full-on content safari. Suddenly, I'm watching a dude in the forest build a solar-powered swimming pool with nothing but a spoon and three leaves.
Two videos later, I'm on Reddit reading about a cat who learned Python. I scroll, laugh, maybe cry a bit — who knows? — then realize: wait… what was I even doing before this??
I tab back into VS Code. Blank stare. No idea where I left off. The bug? Still undefeated. My break? Now a feature-length film.
It gets worse when I try to "feel productive" again by checking my emails — which leads to Slack — which leads to someone's GitHub repo — which leads to a blog post about "How I Scaled My Startup to 1M Users in 6 Months" — which leads to me questioning all my life decisions.
And the worst part? I always act surprised when it happens. Like I didn't know my brain is a professional overthinker and procrastinator in one.
So here's my advice — if you ever tell yourself "10 minutes"… set a damn timer. Or better yet, don't touch your phone. Or better-better yet, just accept the fact that that break is gonna be a whole damn journey.
Because let's face it: you don't take 10-minute breaks. You take quests. But hey — if you come back with a cleared head and a couple laughs… maybe that spoon hut wasn't such a bad detour after all.