Today, after a few days of slowly circling the drain that is worsening burnout, I realized I had to find a way to stay focused despite how tired I’m getting and decided to skip straight to pulling out the big guns. I’ve been putting it off for a while now, since I don’t always enjoy the experience, but there’s no arguing with how effective it is when it comes to keeping me on task and at least marginally focused on fairly straight-foward work. So, rather than deal with the various thoughts swirling around my head about my job, my work hours, how I feel about doing this work, and literally anything else that might normally occupy my mind, I blasted them all away by subjecting myself to the ten-hour version of the He-Man Hey Yeah Yeah video (officially titled “HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA” but no one I know calls it that). I started the video shortly after I started work and have left it running all day, taking my headphones off when I need to be capable of complex thought and leaving them on while conducting rote tasks, doing simpler thought work (like writing this blog), and running the hours and hours of tests I need to do today. So far, I’ve kept my sanity and managed to be more productive than any other day this week, despite being four days into this parade of mounting exhaustion.

As I write this post, taking a small break from my work to stretch my legs a bit and bend my mind in a different direction for a while, I’m starting hour eight of this ten hour video. I meant to pause it while I was gone on my walk (which I take instead of a lunch break), but I forgot so I’ll have about half an hour of my work day left when the video finally stops. Assuming my headphones don’t die before then. I’m really not sure they’re up for this level of constant use. It isn’t much of a change, but they definitely feel warmer on my ears than they did this morning when I first put them on. This might also just be one of the medications that I’m on, which can sometimes make my ears feel warm when I touch them or just at random sometimes. I’m not really sure, but the outside of my headphones, which is the closest part to the battery, doesn’t feel warmer than I’d expect the plastic exteriors to feel, so I’m sure it’s fine. Probably fine. I definitely also haven’t been using my progress through this video as a metaphor for my grip on my own sanity with the friends I’ve been talking to throughout the day. Definitely not. Regardless of what else is going on, the comforting familarity, upbeat tune, and ceaseless repetition are helping me get through what might have otherwise been a difficult and unproductive day if yesterday is anything to go off of.

The reason this works at all is because this endless music replaces most of the space my mind would use for idle thoughts. The ideas that normally distract me, the intrusive thoughts that knock my mind off kilter, my roving mind jettisoning itself from whatever task I’m currently doing because it found some emotional hurdle to trip over… None of that can happen when all the open space of my mind is filled by this song. I barely even pay attention to it anymore. It just plays on repeat and I tune in and out as my attention shifts. I still get distracted as I move from one task or set of test cases to another, but I don’t feel my usual urge to find something more to do when I finish whatever little thing I’m using to break up my work a bit. I mean, it also prevents me from ever getting into the zone or losing myself in my work, but I’d rather have a long productive day with no space for me to feel bad about everything going on than a day with fits and starts of high productivity intespersed with bouts of extreme melancholy that make my day feel incredibly short. After all, moderate producivity all day long gets more work done than short bursts of high productivity AND I don’t feel as exhausted afterwards. I’m probably still going to crash when I’m done with work and can settle in at home, but I’m still doing fine even as I’m entering hour nine of this video.

This is a trick I’ve relied on in the past, so I’m pretty familiar with how the course of this will run. I used it in college (though the video itself was from a different channel that got taken down about eight years ago) to help me study and as a bit of a meme with my friends since I was the only one in the group immune to the annoyance of repetitive things. In my first job, I frequently used it to help me create distance from the parts of the job I disliked and the people who I didn’t fit in with, all on top of it helping me focus on the days when I’d have to work late or long hours. I used it a little bit during my first couple years of this current job, mostly for focus reasons which, at that time, were a result of a breakup that left me mentally distracted for quite a few months and then my grandfather’s cancer diagnosis that left me distracted for the better part of a year (prior to and then following his passing). I’m sure there’s an explanation for why this works so well for me, probably something to do with my brain’s desire for order, my OCD, and the way that the right kind of music fades into the background in a way that helps you focus (the best examples of this are video game soundtracks), but I don’t really question it. It works and I don’t slowly come to hate it the way I do with every other ten-hour anything I’ve attempted to us as a replacement for or supplement to this video. I neither know nor care why, I just like having it in my back pocket so I can pull it out when I really need it. It’s difficult to argue with something so effective and so harmless.