I would add mindfulness meditation to the list.
Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
111–120 of 144 posts
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a problem with your employer. None of mine have ever had a problem with me taking off early to make up for days I've worked longer hours. Have you talked to them about it?
I have talked about this. From my experience it's very common in tech to let people work longer without compensation in time or money.
By your behavior you are putting your employer in a situation where he breaks the law. Mention this to your manager, companies are not above labor laws simply because "its IT, everybody does that". They can be sued easily by disgruntled employees, and for huge piles of cash.
Not everybody does that, and if they do, there is appropriate compensation (cash, extra time off and/or both). Good companies simply don't, they realize you can easily walk away to next company. I never ever worked for an employer like that for example, and that's 15 years and 6 employers in 3 countries.
You're selling yourself cheap. Have some dignity.
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#113The best for a quick reset is juggling (believe it or not!). Nothing beats physical exercise, either at the gym, cardio alone or team sports, to make up for hours of sitting and staring at a screen.
Team sports sounds nice -- physical + talking.
partner juggling is a thing! I picked up juggling a bit ago, as my romantic partner is an avid practitioner. spent a half hour after work working on a 3-club Cascade.
One of the beautiful bits is, if you're working on something new, there's only so long you can spend attempting to "get it" before your brain fuzzes out and it becomes futile, and hence forces a break. A physically and mentally time-bound activity, unlike a lot of things one might choose to distract oneself with (social media, reading the news, etc)
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#114But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
It sounds like your learning process is inefficient and you might want to look at "learning to learn". Or even going back to the instruments for a while and practicing.
But then I've always relied on the opposite: just-in-time learning, which was possible in the pre-internet era but is now much, much easier.
You need to accept that the world is too big to fit in your head - even limiting yourself to the field of programming, there's a huge amount of material out there. You need to specialise.
You've also not said what all this is for - is it an end in itself, or is it in service of getting a better job? For the money? To prove something to yourself, or to others? Do you actually need to climb your own personal Everest?
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#115But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
It sounds like you’re optimizing for doing the most work and spending the most time learning, but in my experience, it’s better to optimize for quality of work and quality of learning. You don’t do that by staying in overdrive all the time. Taking time to relax, reflect, and assimilate really is necessary to keep your creative mind functioning well.
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#116But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
> There are 15 year old kids who know more than me currently, then I will ever learn/know.
If the rest of your comment is true, this is probably false. Seriously, if you train constantly, a 15 year old hasn't had enough time to compete. So what's more likely is that you see people who have delved deeply into one thing deeper than you... But you know other things that they don't have a clue about.
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#117But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
> But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger
I know exactly what you mean, since I have been at that place myself multiple times throughout my studies and work life.
Short background: I went back to study at the university (B.Sc. + M.Sc.) at the age of 24 and got my M.Sc. degree at the age of 30; now I'm working as a software engineer at a startup.
What really helped was in a first step to work on fully accepting myself. You will always find people that are smarter, faster, than you, but that does not mean that you are not worth of love or respect. It's okay to not be able to solve an interview question in time, or to fail an exam, or to not understand a topic the first time you hear about it. We're humans, and this is part of being human.
Self compassion and meditation helped and still help me a lot, especially when I'm facing situations where my self-esteem takes a hit or two.
It also helped a lot to understand that everyone has its own pace. If I would have gone to university years earlier I would have probably failed, because I just wasn't ready for that step at that point in my life. Now I'm 31 years of age, and I am where I want to be. And that's the important thing: it's the right place _for me_, but it may not be the right place _for you_ or for someone else, and that is totally fine!
I'm working with software engineers that are a few years younger than me, who finished their studies quite some time ago and have been working for the past few years, and I'm totally fine with that. It's really awesome, because I'm learning so many things from all of them, and it doesn't matter if they are 21 years or 45 years old. At the end of the day they are also human beings, all with their own baggage filled with fears, failures, positive experiences, and so on.
In general, being kinder to myself changed my life for the better, so I can really recommend to first working on being happy with yourself, and then taking further small steps from there.
In case you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.
Wish you all the best for the future, you can do it!
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#118But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
I have wondered if anyone has advice on what an ideal pie chart of your discretionary time should look like. How much of my time should be spent learning new technical things, and of that how much should be directly applicable versus exploring related fields versus totally random, hoping for serendipitous connections. How much of my time should instead be spent on reading classic literature, building side projects, household chores such as tidying up, personal finance, watching tv and movies, playing video games, revisiting old journals of ideas, socializing, networking, etc.
I'm sure if most people sat down and did a full accounting of how they spend their time, they'd feel guilty. We know we need rest, just not how much of it. Nor how to divide up the non-rest time optimally. It's not even clear what the objective function is. Happiness? Meaningfulness? Bank account? Reproductive success? I haven't dedicated enough of my pie to reading the thoughts of others on this subject.
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#119I hate talking to people after a long programming session. I simply can't do it, and I'm normally very social and outgoing. I just stand there and it probably looks like I'm gazing off at something; I'm just not there. I've tried doing many things after a long session.. for me, the only remedy I've found is time. I just need a few hours. I also produce music. This doesn't help because producing is very similar to pro…
Yeah, I read the author's comment about playing music to relax after programming, and I immediately thought I might do some programming to relax after a serious session of music performance/recording. Frankly, playing a gig leaves me more intellectually/emotionally drained and dysfunctional than a long programming session does.
One of the last things I want to do being mentally exhausted, is listen to music. I relax by doing busy work. Water the plants, removing weeds, vacuum, walk/hike, ect. things that require my attention, but not any significant processing.
Re: Reversing the effects of long programming sessions
#120But how do I deal with the fact that I always feel that there are people out there who are a lot better than me and a lot younger. I feel I am already wasting time doing daily chores...I feel the act of 'eating' is complete waste of time. You are doing nothing..just eating.. There is this constant thing in the back of my mind, that I need to improve. I stopped watching movies, stopping playing Dota (had played it 200…
This sounds like an obsession that is adversely affecting your life. If you had a painful tooth that was affecting your ability to relax, you'd see a dentist. If you had a leg injury that was affecting your life, you'd see a medical professional.
Do the same for this. Looking after your mental health is simply a sensible thing to do.