I am a self-taught developer with over 15 years of experience in the tech field. Over the years, I’ve learned that your success as a developer depends on more than your ability to write code and debug programs.
Hustle Culture isn’t healthy
Software development is competitive. However, there’s a difference between pushing yourself to be your very best and going too far, ruining your health and mental well-being. By all means, work hard! Hustling is good if it gets you the promotion ahead of others or helps you raise funds for your startup. Hustling is good if it keeps you motivated and supercharges your goals. But, if hustling affects your well-being as a software engineer, it is too large a price to pay for career growth. Too often, we confuse the difference between hustling to finish a project or accomplish something with living in a constant grind that wears us down, pulls us away from what is essential, and hurts our mental or emotional health. Let go of the “hustle culture” and create a work environment that prioritizes your mental health and well-being as much as the company’s growth.
Take ‘Real’ Breaks
For many of us, a “break” includes having a snack, listening to music, or surfing the web for a few minutes. The problem? You are still at your desk, so it’s not a real break. Get up from your desk, walk, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, relax, and practice stretching exercises- just make sure to award yourself a ‘real’ break. You can also use chrome extensions like Break Timer to remind you to take breaks. Your break should be the opposite of what you usually do. If you sit while you work, your break should inevitably involve getting up, stretching, and moving around.
Optimize your monitor setup
Your monitor setup goes a really long way toward preventing Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). CVS symptoms can include:
- Red eyes
- Dry eyes
- Irritated eyes
- Eye strain
- Double vision
- Vertigo
- Hard to refocus the eyes
- Polyopia
Thankfully, with some preemptive mitigation, you can help shield yourself from some of the damage! First, if you’re a glasses wearer and don’t have the right prescription lenses, your eyes will have to work harder to focus. This causes muscle fatigue, which will lead to headaches and worsen your vision. Second, position your monitor between 20 and 40 inches away from you. This is roughly the length of your arm. If you can give your monitor a high five, you’re too close. If you can’t touch your monitor, you’re too far. Third, adjust your monitor’s brightness relative to the rest of the room. A great way to test that brightness is to look at a website with a completely white background. If your screen looks like a light source, it’s probably too bright. If it looks dull and gray, it’s probably too dark.
Cut the caffeine
I know, I know—we all love our coffee, tea, and soda. A tiny bit of these each day won’t really harm you (the tea might even help) but consume more than a little bit, and you’re pretty much setting yourself up for fatigue. Caffeine works by binding to receiver sites in your brain. In doing so, it blocks the essential spaces that your neurochemical signals need in order to get through and do their job. Essentially, you’re cutting off important parts of your brain function! Even worse, once the caffeine high wears off, you’re left feeling tired and depleted. You might also end up with a headache or a migraine. Most people’s response to this is to just drink more caffeine. Given the extremely addictive nature of caffeine, it turns out this is a pretty bad idea.As you drink even more caffeine, you’re blocking off more and more receptor space. When you continue to do this on a daily basis, your brain expects this increased level as its baseline, meaning you’ll need to drink even more caffeine to get the same effect. If that’s not enough to convince you to cut the caffeine, consider the fact that caffeine’s a stimulant. The more you drink, the higher your blood pressure goes, and the harder your heart has to work to keep your blood flowing!
Sleeping
Funny as it may sound, sleep is a really good technique to refresh our minds and bodies. Studies show that it helps with improving communication between nerve cells. On top of the mindfulness-based practices I work with, sleep is another one of my go-to techniques when I feel I need a total refreshing of my mind. When you feel confused or overworked, leave your workplace and find yourself a place to lie down and shut down for a few minutes (if that won’t get you fired). However, don’t get into the habit of sleeping, or that will become counter-productive. I always recommend sleeping as the last resort.
Plan Ahead
One of the things that lead to confusion is a lack of planning. If you start off in many directions, you are sure to lose and come out more confused than you started. Programming requires a lot of mental planning before we get to execute it physically and research has linked this kind of planning to project success, not only in programming but also in other areas of our lives. What I normally do is gain a good understanding of the entire project I am working on, the areas that I am supposed to work on, and what is needed in those areas, and then I break down the work into small steps in my to-do list. Every time I finish a task, I tick it off my list. This helps me make consistent progress and achieve the goal much faster.
