Overcoming a Coder Burnout
The past year has been an interesting one for me. I switched jobs again, back to the place I used to work for. I overcame a severe coder burnout and have been trying to get more motivated. I guess it all started in 2007.. so 18 days ago, but it was something that I was really trying to accomplish.
If you have been coding for any period of time longer than 2 years or so you will know what I am talking about. You come to work, stare blankly at the screen, you know that things need to get done and yet you do nothing but surf digg.com and do about 25% of the amount of work you could be doing during the week. The thought of writing another line of code or dealing with yet another request makes you ill. You are tired, easily irritated and wish you could head back to bed. The problem is that even if you did head back to bed things wouldn’t get better.
I for one require at least 8 hours of sleep to function, that is unless I do a morning workout then its more like 5 or 6. Problem with this morning workout thing always seemed to be the fact that I could never wake up in time or have the energy for it. So I tried a few other things yet nothing seemed to ever work. I found this article / post on digg.com ::
Overcoming Coder’s Block:
http://skindeep.logankoester.com/overcoming-coders-block
Feel free to read that at your leisure however to summarize what worked and didn’t for me:
“Create a work environment with as much artificial light and as little clutter as possible. I don’t know why, but sunlight is actually more laziness-inducing than darkness for me – I keep the blinds closed. Unfortunately I’m a bit of an ogre by nature so often removing said clutter could be as much of a day-long distraction as anything else. ”
• Two problems there, one I love sunlight and it actually helps my mood so I get more into coding. Two I hate artificial light, it gives me the headache of a lifetime. I had the light on in my cube the other day and I felt like someone just hit me in the head with a machete. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable and work-ish is what I would recommend.
“Go full-screen and kill any processes that intrude by popping up. Setting the taskbar to auto-hide (if you use Windows) may also be helpful. ”
• That actually is a great suggestion. I do not find myself having too many such distractions since I am on a corporate machine. However, if you work in a smaller shop and you have more freedoms keep in mind that MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, Google Chat … whatever. They really are affecting your work.
• I actually made an effort and have no IM programs open or running. This isn’t just because the workplace blocks them, very easy to get around that, but when I had IM programs running I was chatting more than I was coding. This goes hand in hand with the next suggestion.
“Avoid social news websites (such as digg) at all cost.”
• I think that thus far digg.com has cost my employer more money than can be measured. One fatal mistake I made is putting their widget on my Google.com homepage( we’ll talk about the google homepage in a bit). I have found myself thinking: “Well I will only do this for a bit and then get back.” Guess what? That little bit turns out to end at lunchtime.
• As far as your homepage goes DON’T EVER HAVE A PERSONALIZED GOOGLE / YAHOO / MSN PAGE !!!! These pages are uber distracting since you normally pack them with crap that you find interesting. If you have a company page available keep your home page at that since those are usually boring as hell anyway you will most likely stay on track. I constantly found myself opening a browser trying to accomplish something work related and I saw some catchy digg headline or “OOOOHHHH !! I have e-mail!” Not cool. So keep it plain jane or set your homepage as the standard ol’ google look one textbox & 2 buttons.
I would recommend reading Logan’s blog post since I only picked off 3 of his suggestions to talk about. At any rate, the other thing that works for me is a morning workout. I know that finding a unicorn in your basement may seem easier, but trust me you can do it. I started working out in the morning and I have been way more energetic, require less sleep, I am happier( yea yea sounds gay I know but that’s a big deal when you are forced to sit in front of a machine the whole day), the list goes on.
The point is not to overexert yourself. If you go all out the first day you are never going to stick to your program, because it will tire you out and have the opposite effect. So when I tell you to start out with 5 sit-ups and 5 pushups and that sounds like I am a giant sissy, trust me there is a reason behind it. There are 2 reasons to start slow:
1. It takes 21 days to form a habit and one day to break it. If you go all out and bust yourself up during the first few days there is no way that you will make it through the 21 days. So take it slow at first, you will have plenty of time to add to your routine.
2. If you overexert yourself you will be more tired and want to head back to bed instead of work.
If you find that 5 sit-ups and 5 pushups is too easy for you, increase the amount you do by 1 every day. It is very important not to increase this amount astronomically since you could end up doing too much.
Try this for 3 days and before long you will find yourself much more productive and energetic. I have been on this “program” for 16 days and thus far I am up to 25 sit-ups and 25 pushups( I started out with 10 and 10 ), and 40 jumping jacks. The whole workout takes less than 2 minutes. You don’t even have to leave your bedroom to do this workout. If you need something to hold you down while doing sit-ups use your bed, dresser or any other stationary object that you won’t tip over. The pushups are the easiest since you don’t need anything to hold you down or help you… its just you and gravity… mano-e-mano.
If I get any sort of decent response from friends/family/co-workers/whatever to this I may even do a “workout-routine series” since once you graduate past the pushups and sit-ups you may be at a loss for things to do.
We’re almost there…
I have long wanted to equip our fighting forces ( US Military to clarify ) like Master Chief from the Halo series or more recently the Marines from Gears of War and possibly Storm Troopers. Not only would this mean super bionic strength but if done right the suits could have nanytes built in which could fix wounds and so on. At any rate, technology set aside the “HOLY SHIT!” factor alone could make it worth it.
With this in mind I started poking about on the Internet and I realized we are getting there. Have a look:
Give it a couple more years and I think we will see Storm Troopers running around. Maybe a clone army ?
OI !! The stupidity!
I was going to start this blog post by saying that I generaly do not take the time to blog about idiots. Thought about it again, and I actually do.
I saw this on Digg, and just had to screen it cause I know e-Bay will kill the auction. Check out the pic below and tell me if you see anything wrong with that auction. Note: Click the image for full size.
Give up yet ??
….
The jackass posted the License Keys in the product picture!!!! What’s even more astonishing is that there are 12 bids thus far.. Ah, stupidity… makes the day go by faster!
Am I a Heavyweight?
I normally do not complain about drinks I receive at bars. This is due to the fact that I rarely drink at a bar and I seem to be somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to drinking anyways. However over the Holidays I have had my share of drinking, almost like I was in college again, and I seem to have built up a decent tolerance. Last night I found myself at a familiar bar, Mojos, and I ordered what I always order… Rum and Coke. I got this drink and I found it to be missing the rum. The previous night my fiancee and I went to Olive Garden and I had 2 rum and cokes and they were fairly strong. I had a headache before drinking those drinks and afterward I was pleasantly numb. The drink at Mojos was almost like drinking a diluted coke.
Why is this a problem? Mojos is somewhat exclusive anyway and they are of the mentality that they are the only show in town. To serve weak, cheap drinks … it’s like the icying on the cake. Two weekends ago they would not let hockey fans wearing jerseys into the bar. Apparently the fans were not missing much. I wouldn’t be so glad that their drinks suck if I were not a part of those fans turned away the weekend before that.
We ended up going to another bar which in my humble opinion was a great deal better, The Bob( yeah I know funny name ) . So what’s the point of this post? Well if you are GR and can’t get into Mojos : http://www.mojospianobar.com/ .. The Bob :: http://www.thebob.com/ has better drinks, better facilities, better service, food… list goes on. I recommend The Bob to begin with if you don’t want to waste your time…
What the Wii ?
I recently decided that I wanted to get a Nintendo Wii since everyone has been blasting the PS3 and is always praising the Wii. I decided to look into the whole hype. Those that know me are aware that I have been somewhat addicted to the World of Warcrack. I don’t really play videogames outside of that and I recently got bored and tired of WoW.
To replace my “habit” I have been coding, working overtime and so on. I was trolling digg.com a few days ago and was reading about how great the Wii is doing compared to the PS3. This was rather interesting so I decided to look into it. The thing I did not know is that apparently there is a great shortage of Wiis. There are two things that are somewhat disgusting if you are looking to buy a Wii. The first being that no stores have the Wii, and the second that none of them know when the product will be coming in. Apparently it is so popular that almost all stores are getting them shipped directly. This means that they don’t know when a new supply of Wiis is on its way.
What does this mean for the consumer? It means that cherry pickers and professional eBayers are the only ones that will have ease in getting the product. I called all over the place today and finally found one. When the guy said “Yes I have one left” I about fell over since the answer had been “No!” everywhere else. Now the shitty part is that he wouldn’t hold it for me, or let me purchase the damn thing over the phone. It took me 15 minutes to get to the store( yes there was speeding and a-holish driving on my part ), and the only Wii that I knew about had sold. 15 STINKING MINUTES!!!!
So what’s the point of this whole rant? Well other than to vent I wanted to pass on some information. Say that you are fed up with not knowing when the next large Wii shipment will be and you don’t want to roll the dice and just drive around( gas is not cheap ). What do you do ? I was told to wait until there is an advertisement in the local paper for any store where the Wii is featured. This means that they will have to hold the product for the day that the ad breaks. Say that is a Saturday. So early Saturday morning you need to head out get in line, get a number ( or a bat ) and wait for the Wii. That is pretty much the only way you are guaranteed to get any prediction as to when some place will have them in stock. Of course there is always eBay.. but then you are just funding the pondscum that buy these consoles and extort the general public.
Hope this helps…
Extreme Blog Makeover Adrian Edition
So I decided to re-work my blog from what it used to be, to something friendlier and more bloggy. I don’t have any plans to post post post as some other folks do, but I am hoping that the new look will make me post a bit more. Thats all for now, stay tuned.
