Letting it bleed so much into life. My job and my hobby (code) have significant overlap. Stuff I learned on the job started making hobby coding not fun and shortcomings at the job started to feel like my own personal failures. I am slowly learning to separate my work and personal identities, to understand that my employer’s stuff is not my own, and to leave work at work when work ends. I wish I had done that from the first day though.
It’s starting to. I think for me at least it’s because I’m missing checkpoints in life. Every year used to be its own well-defined column of paint on a canvas but ever since I started working, the last few columns have felt like one giant smear.
I don’t like where I’ve ended up so been trying to make my own goals and hobbies but it takes so much more effort than when most goals were planned for you in school. Perhaps something to add to the New Year’s resolutions…
Maybe a bit basic but at the beginning of every month I clone this Google Sheets template, set goals in each category, and manually log receipts as I spend. Then at the end of the month, I “audit” my budget against my credit card transactions, pay off credit, and create the next month’s budget with any adjustments learned from the previous one.
For bigger view, long-term, I just linked all my accounts into Quicken and look at it sometimes.