Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Write Code Every Day

ejohn.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 221 posts

Re: Write Code Every Day

#21

Post by jeresig »

chris_va wrote: post #17

I just want to caution folks, from experience, that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees if you are constantly trying to code. I think the key takeaway here is that sticking to a plan is helpful, and that a coding heavy plan is a productive one. This is a great post for that. I would argue that a good plan should include time off for reflection, and to avoid burning out. I have seen too many engineers burn out…

Perhaps surprisingly I feel like this process has allowed me to come to these conclusions even more quickly. If I spend five days in a row working on the same thing it's a giant red alarm in my mind. "Is this the most important thing I should be working on? Why did I just spend five days working on it? Should I move on to something else now?" I'd contrast this with before where if I only worked on it every weekend my ability to make those realization would be on the scale of a month, rather than a week - allowing me to adapt and respond much more easily.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#22

Post by Lambdanaut »

akilism wrote: post #19
Lambdanaut wrote: post #8

That was a beautiful post. Currently I'm in the complete opposite modus operandi. I don't do a lick of side-project work during the week, and on weekends I take a modafinil(wakefullness promoting medication) and stay up nights on end to crack out as much as I can. I get an INSANE amount done on the weekends that I have the energy to pull this off, but it's horrible for my health. The rest of the week I have anxiety a…

no side effects from the modafinil? I take them very rarely pretty much only when it's of the utmost importance that something gets done by a deadline and even then i'll only take a half or a quarter.

Same here. The only side effect I've noticed is that I can find myself extremely obsessed with writing long-winded rants to people if I get side-tracked from the task at hand. I know that this is a commonly reported side effect, so I always catch myself and force myself to stop before I get that far, but it's something to watch out for.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#23

Post by iSnow »

In the long run, this is unhealthy.

Yes, it makes you more productive, but what if you fall in love, get sick, have a child...? Then you feel guilty about not catering to your side projects and guilt breeds procrastination.

I learned how to break down work into small pieces and rather finish one small piece and then call it a day instead of leaving something half-working for the next day. Because of this, I left projects dormant for 3 months and then picked them up again.

Granted, my side-projects are for-fun and not for-money, that makes it easier...

Re: Write Code Every Day

#24

Post by beat »

On a slightly related note, I'm trying to impose a new behaviorist training on myself. I've never been one to listen to music when working, although I love music (as in member of two active bands, produced many albums love music).

So now, I'm trying to do work in album-length increments. Put on the headphones, pick an album, and work on one task all the way through it. No breaks, no interruptions. It's kind of a Pomodoro technique variant, a bit longer and with the headphones involved for extra habit and insulation from the outside world.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#25

Post by smonte »

gdubs wrote: post #2

This "don't break the chain" approach has worked extremely well for me, particularly during busy periods of high stress. I first learned about it in my college writing classes, where you're supposed to write something, anything, meaningless jibberish even, every single morning. Recently I read about Seinfeld using this approach to great successs. Every day he works on material, and puts a big, fat, "X" on the calenda…

"This "don't break the chain" approach has worked extremely well for me".

I believe you are certainly not the only one. Changing "tasks" into habits greatly helps to achieve your goals. I recently read an excellent book about habits called "The Power of Habit" from Charles Duhigg. I sincerely recommend reading it.

And for the OP, thanks for posting and sharing your ideas. I can relate to many of the things mentioned in the post. Especially for the anxiety part. It does not matter what you are coding, as long as you code something. I've solved some problem's from Project Euler and after each exercise I've felt a sense of accomplishment and restful.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#26

Post by natdempk »

steveklabnik wrote: post #7

The real problem with "don't break the chain" is that once it does, things collapse. See my graph: https://github.com/steveklabnik As you can see, I'm about to lose a ton of green. I'm at 87 days as my longest, but July 6, 2013 was brutal for me. I was actually flying, and had saved a small bit of work to do during a layover, but then I totally forgot. Once that chain was broken, it was super easy to justify taking s…

One thing I've found is that when you miss days, having some sort of planned reset time is definitely helpful. I use the same chain technique to journal every day through 750words. They track streaks both overall in days and visually on a montly basis, meaning that if you fall off the wagon, you can still easily get back on. The motivation comes from the fact that you can work from scratch towards getting another perfect month. I really like this approach, though I'm not sure exactly how you could apply it to Github's commit UI.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#27

Post by LanceH »

Zero days are great. Enjoy them without guilt. Don't fear going back to day 1. Make your decision each day if you're going to enjoy a zero day or get something done and long streaks can follow.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#28

Post by lazerwalker »

beat wrote: post #24

On a slightly related note, I'm trying to impose a new behaviorist training on myself. I've never been one to listen to music when working, although I love music (as in member of two active bands, produced many albums love music). So now, I'm trying to do work in album-length increments. Put on the headphones, pick an album, and work on one task all the way through it. No breaks, no interruptions. It's kind of a Pomo…

That sounds vaguely similar to what John Carmack allegedly used to do: http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivit...

Re: Write Code Every Day

#29

Post by Lambdanaut »

prawks wrote: post #13
Lambdanaut wrote: post #8

That was a beautiful post. Currently I'm in the complete opposite modus operandi. I don't do a lick of side-project work during the week, and on weekends I take a modafinil(wakefullness promoting medication) and stay up nights on end to crack out as much as I can. I get an INSANE amount done on the weekends that I have the energy to pull this off, but it's horrible for my health. The rest of the week I have anxiety a…

I would say changing to a more consistent work schedule is definitely a good idea, but don't lose the "schedule" part. There's a huge advantage to being able to say "okay, now is work time". However, after writing that I imagine it's a very personal thing, not everyone will work best in the same way.

Haha yeah I totally agree there. I've got a time allotted every day after work that I really could fill with at least 30 minutes of coding, but somehow it gets diverted to god-knows-what.

Re: Write Code Every Day

#30

Post by hawkharris »

Telling a programmer to write code every day is a bit like asking an aspiring carpenter to swing a hammer: it's a necessary component of improving your skills and building things, but it is also a narrow, technical task that has limited value in isolation.

Having said that, programmers should spend at least as much time reading and thinking about code as they do writing it. You can write code for hours each day and do nothing but revert to the technologies and techniques that you find most comfortable.

Post reply on HN