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Ask HN: Going to bed with *unsolved* problems in your head?

1 franktankbank 2 8/13/2025, 4:18:11 PM
Now I've gone to bed with a problem in my head that I had some sense was solvable, no problem there and knock it out in the morning. What happens when you go to bed regularly with unsolved problems? Either you encounter a new problem regularly that you don't know how to solve by bedtime; or you have long standing unsolved problems? In my experience this is what causes burnout at the fundamental level. Protagonists/Antagonists have at it, revere me or shred me, its the internet I don't care.

Comments (2)

HsuWL · 2h ago
Being happy is just one day, being worried is just one day, and don’t think about things that cannot be solved immediately. Thinking about them will really make your brain deceive yourself into thinking that you are doing something and working hard. In fact, it is just random thoughts that increase your anxiety. Anyway, 反正人都是爛命一條, so just don’t think about it. It is happier to just lie down and sleep.
incomingpain · 2h ago
>What happens when you go to bed regularly with unsolved problems?

You're "sleeping on it" that's what everyone does, or should do. totally fine thing to be doing.

Last night, i wasthinking about what i would be doing today with gpt-oss-20b now that it actually works with tools.

I'm finding aider is my front runner right now.

>Either you encounter a new problem regularly that you don't know how to solve by bedtime; or you have long standing unsolved problems?

I wish i had the Steve jobs video to link. You're dealing with prioritization. I think it was 80/20. You spend 80% of your time awake fixing problems that matter. You can only work on 20% of nonsense that doesnt matter. Most people in his experience are more so working 20% on what matters and 80% on nonsense.

If you're 'sleeping on it" night after night. You're likely not prioritizing fixing stuff; you're working on the wrong things.

>In my experience this is what causes burnout at the fundamental level.

I look at a random page for "causes of job burnout" and they are all the 20%.