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The Dev Health OS

The Framework Principles

Challenging and changing ingrained beliefs and modes of operation that no longer serve us requires a clear understanding of how we currently operate in our work/personal lives and why we do so. To get the most out of the Restful OS, we first need to identify each area where we want to see a shift in perspective and then dig deeper into our individual motivations for operating under a work/life system that creates inevitable burnout.

Challenging our Thinking

Our goal is to help create an environment (operating system) for restful work to be consistently produced. If we start with changing behavior, we’ll either struggle to stick with the new habits long term, or we’ll struggle to even start to change habits. All human beings need a “why,” and our goal is to help you discover that purpose. To find your why, you’ll question your assumptions about work and look to replace those with something true. With the help and structure of the restful OS, you’re going to push, pry, dig, and engage in self-reflection. One of the best ways to challenge our thinking around work is to gather data with the goal of avoiding vagueness and gaining clarity. For example, if you identify that you work too much during this phase of the reflection, the next step is to look at the data supporting this assumption. How many hours do we actually work? How much time do we spend thinking about work? Does thinking about work count as some form of work? Do we know how much time is spent in meetings versus heads down? Do we know how many hours are actually slept versus time spent in bed? Do we understand the quality of our sleep? We want to find the answers to these questions in order to begin influencing our work habits.

Challenging our Work Habits

We’ll continue to challenge our thinking as we begin to change our work habits by integrating our four foundational principles to living a life of restful work:

  1. Slowing down is the foundation of restful work. Consistently overworking can produce adrenaline that eventually causes health issues and lower-quality output. Slowing down and creating margin (i.e., time buffers) is the direction we need to take. We’ll discuss tools to do this, implement a daily action plan, and start tracking a habit that allows us to slow down each day.

  2. Work is one part of our lives, but it’s not the only part. Here, we’ll discuss careerism, boundaries with work and technology, and ways to discover our lives outside of work. We’ll help implement an essentialism plan and start tracking a second habit around discovering oneself.

  3. Health is a glass ball that cannot be dropped. We believe that health is a glass ball, if it’s dropped, it doesn’t bounce back, it shatters. Work is a rubber ball. If it’s dropped, it always comes back. In this section, we’ll discuss sleep, various addictions, mental health counseling, chronic illness, and finding the right form of exercise for us. We’ll also begin tracking our third habit around physical/mental health.

  4. Avoid artificial pressure and adrenalizing at all costs. Artificial pressure happens at every company. We’ll examine workplace boundaries to avoid artificial pressure. We’ll also discuss the four-day workweek, how to stop adrenalizing and revisit the essentialism plan with a focus on under-scheduling.

Rewiring our Brain

Technology has a significant impact on our brains. As technology becomes critical to our work, it is important to consider its potential adverse effects on our physical, mental, and emotional health. We will examine these effects and address steps to be more conscious of these changes. We will also identify ways to improve the health of our brain, which range from changing habits around daily routines to environmental impacts to neuromodulation and brain retraining that take advantage of our brain’s neuroplasticity to make improvements.