For me it's carrying my journal/pen. I so often do not have it when I need it. And not just for taking notes, which I could do on my phone... but just to scribble on while I work through an idea, design, scheam, etc.
I have it with me at my desk, but I want to develop the habit of carrying it around with me and not leaving it at the last place I was.
I've been trying to just use my notebook more in general. Recently having gotten a fountain pen has helped me want to do it more. I definitely do want to try to get better at having it with me more though sometimes that's inconvenient.
OOOOOOooooh this is honestly my favorite habit and it helps so much! For anyone that also likes notebooks that have fancy notes (color coding, specific topics, revised notes for later review) it helps to have one separate notebook for those notes, and an easy-to-carry notebook for scribbles and idea jotting.
Sometimes when working through problems on paper, you might encounter some [method, topic, practice] that might help in the future and it'll definitely be a lot easier to have a proper section in a cleaner notebook instead of having it scattered amongst a sea of scribbles.
I've always got my journal with me and plenty of times it's been useful. You never know when you'll find info best saved for later, it relieves your brain of so much cognitive energy to just write stuff down for later.
i was subscribed to a monthly notebook/pen delivery and i found ways to remember because they started piling up, which forced me to think about it more.
Have you ever tried a Rocket Book? You can write on it and reuse the pages over and over by wiping them clean with a moist cloth. They also have an app where you can scan your pages so you can have a digital record of them. I have one and I love it. I had boxes of notebooks before and I just have the one Rocket Book now.
Yeah I have both the one you use with Frixion pens and the one you use with Crayola special markers. I only use them for traveling though because I still have tons of notebooks and pens from when I had the subscription. I want to use them up.
Although, probably when they are gone I’ll subscribe again because a couple of my friends run the subscription box service. Also if I don’t have notebooks piling up, I won’t have as much incentive to remember to bring my notebook with me.
Getting a pocket-sized pen was really helpful for me to be better about carrying a pen with me. Full sized pens were always a pain in the butt to carry around if I didn't have a bag or backpack etc.
So far, for me I have been consistent with this because on the side I find small projects that require minor fixes and make contributions to. Also I have a full side project that have features yet to be implemented that I can also push code to. Then there's the alternative of following along with expanded code tutorials, create my own own repo and commit my own code to my repo.
Voice notes definitely work. The goal here being to cut to the chase ASAP.
Well, simply reply to the "serious mails" only! Spam is called so, just because.
I'd like to know what good habits you are developing too.
So far, for me I have been consistent with this because on the side I find small projects that require minor fixes and make contributions to. Also I have a full side project that have features yet to be implemented that I can also push code to. Then there's the alternative of following along with expanded code tutorials
That's a good idea, I'll use it maybe starting from a small project and I'll add new features.
I'd like to know what good habits you are developing too.
As a developer I don't have a lot good habits, but I can mention, Use an Ide to write code besides use an linter to write code more cleaner, Memorize shortcuts (You can save time, instead of using the mouse), apply "Single Responsibility Principle", And the last one but not least every piece of code that I use from internet I try to see if this is the best aproach or if I can optimize it.
That's not too much I think and sometimes I feel I'm not a great developer, but I'm improving every day. :D
Wow, that's a very ambitious habit plan. After reading that you are a father of 2, studying 1 hour a day sounds even more impressive. How do you manage to take that time?
Yeah, it's an ambitious habit plan but nothing is easy when you are adapting to.
About managing my schedule is not hard for me (seriously), because of the 1-hour studying every day is at night from Monday to Friday, and weekends pretty early. During workdays I try to start to study at 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM this is after I share 3 hours with my family, some days I play chess 25 minutes trying to do something different to disconnect (I'm sorry, I like playing chess although I'm a terrible player). One thing that is helpful is that my current job is 15 minutes walking from home then I don't spend a lot of time going/coming back home.
One trick that I'm using is the reminders, for instance, I have one alarm from Monday to Friday at 9 pm that recalls me to study, is very useful when I'm distracted.
Another thing that is important to mention is that every week I review whether my actual schedule works or not, so I don't have for now a final version of it.
The others taks that I put in my main comment but read before go to bed, I'm doing in my job. I hope explained well, as you see it's not rocket science. Thanks a lot for your time reading :D
He/Him/His
I'm a Software Engineer and a teacher.
There's no feeling quite like the one you get when you watch someone's eyes light up learning something they didn't know.
Not reaching for my phone when I'm around my family.
I'm an introvert, so my phone is my refuge when I'm in an overly stimulating environment, but I realized recently that I found myself too often responding to my kids by barely looking up from the screen and nodding.
I'm trying to break that and treat my phone as off-limits whenever my kids are around.
man it's hard.
"5." is the final boss for me.I could discover something and write it in french being native in this language but to translate it in english it's another fighter path.
Very much like you. But French is the official language, not the native one. I read a lot in order to improve my English, but I've only started to write articles last year (just a few). I asked for help. I'm using Grammarly and ask for my friends' review on my posts. You don't have to write an essay, just something short will do.
If you'd like someone who speaks English as their native tongue to help with translations and working out kinks, I'd be more than happy to help! I'm all over the web as Alcha so feel free to contact me however works best if you're interested. I've also studied French for a few years in school so while I'm not fluent, I might have a slight advantage 😅
Working out regularly and reading 10 pages a day of a physical book.
I've gotten into audiobooks recently, which are great, but I want to make use of my local library more so I'm challenging myself to slow down and make dedicated time for reading.
no screens 30 minutes before getting ready for bed (which takes about a half hour itself)
writing gratitudes and what i want for tomorrow before bed every day
practice guitar every day (i've been playing since i was a kid but i'm still pretty mediocre)
i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up. i haven't succeeded even once yet :P
i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up. i haven't succeeded even once yet :P
Reddit was my time stealer. I'm doing much better.
What I tend to do in this case is lock down my devices when I first wake up. Make it as difficult as possible to fire up a game when you wake up and as easy as possible to just pick up a book.
If you play online games, disable your network connection for the first few hours of being awake. If single player games are more your style, I'm honestly not too sure how'd you prevent that 🤔 Potentially you could use child locks or some special scripts to prevent it from launching and giving you a notification "YOU SHOULD BE READING!" Or something like that 😅
For me it's the iPad and match-3 games. I had this app installed that would block internet access to blacklisted sites like facebook and twitter. That worked to keep me from playing games because most of them use Facebook to log in. But I learned that if the app was already open I could still play :P.
Hahaha, that's the biggest issue with locking yourself out. If you find a workaround, it's hard to bring yourself to fix it again, it's like cheating the system 😜
Discover something new, every day, in every topics
(Forced curiosity)
Every day I listen random music/artists I don't know (Flow in Deezer)
I take random path when I'm walking (small street hides street-art)
I buy random food at market (strange cereals or vegetables)
I experience a lot when I cook
Once a week I listen random podcasts about subject I don't really care (history, garden...)
I test software or languages I don't really need (curiosity)
I speak with strangers every time I do carpooling.
I use the 'random page' link every time I see it. Wikipedia have one :)
I always click on Google doodle
I'll try to extend this list with speaking with people from other countries, cooking foreign meal, etc ...
It takes a lot of time, it's the perfect opposite of productivity, but it's something we can do as human (computer don't love random :) ). It helped me to find awesome artists, nice photography subject, great meal, new way to work, new way to think, fun anecdotes and so much.
It's the best way to break sameness and forget a bad day :)
When I can, I stay a bit more at my workplace to work on my side projects (they're cool with it) for two reasons: I know I'm productive with this setup and recently as soon as I got home I had no motivation to get back to "work", the rhythm was broken. It's not much, 30min to 1 hour but at least it's regularly and that's the most important.
Going to nature or riding the bike regularly. I usually find myself in the office even in the evening hours... and so I should be able to stand up from desk, leave work, leave own projects for a bit and go...
The idea is to improve one percent everyday, forever.
One percent is not very much. It really isn’t. It’s tiny.
The idea of 1%∞ is the start of what has become a near obsession, for me, with small goals. Teeny tiny goals.
Seriously.
It really works for writing, because writing is such a concrete thing with a very finite finish line. Two words: the end. All you have to do is make 1 percent progress toward those two words.
If you write one percent of a book every day, you’ll have a book written in 100 days. That’s just a little more than three months. One percent! If your book is 80,000 words (or about 300 pages), that’s only 800 words, or three double-spaced pages.
Kim Arnett [she/her] leads the mobile team at Deque Systems, bringing expertise in iOS development and a strong focus on accessibility, user experience, and team dynamics.
Spending less time on social media. During work and my own time. It's distracting, adds little to my life, and keeps me from doing more important things.
I am cultivating a few;
1) read every day: It can be a blog, and article, a chapter in one of the many books that I’m reading.
2) practice new skills every day: It can be on hackerrank or Enki. I am on a mission to level up my Frontend skills, as well as Python and go as we have micro services at my new job written in those languages.
3) cultivate patience and empathy: I struggle with being intolerant or closed-minded to new ideas or concepts that I feel aren’t worth discussion sometimes. I am making an effort to listen with the intent of understanding, not waiting for my turn to respond.
Giving compliments to my friends instead of just thinking about them in my head. I used to see my friends and think, "cool shoes", "nice shirt", etc...but I've noticed that since I've started verbally expressing these sentiments, the genuine gratitude they give back makes me smile.
Telling my friends and family I love them. Over the past few years I've abruptly lost people in my life and I would have these feelings of regret that I never showed them enough appreciation and what not. It's definitely gotten easier and less awkward.
Drink a lot of water. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants (I read that somewhere, I forgot...but it stuck with me). It's working so far - my physician says I'm pretty healthy so I believe her.
Mine is doing more reading about software and programming as a whole. I'm good at reading about the code specifics and details, but my broader understanding has suffered. I've got a few books coming in the mail and I hope to make reading them all a regular thing, whether it's skimming or taking notes.
Your #2 is something I've been trying to work on as well. Like I know that if I just spent an hour trying to figure something out then there's got to be someone else out there with the same issue and maybe my solution is exactly what they need.
I did this when I worked for a tech company in the bay area, it was truly amazing how something as simple as making yourself breakfast in the morning can really start your day off better. I feel like it's something to do with 1) just doing something simple when you wake up, so you feel accomplished, and 2) it's nice to feed yourself 😋
Geek. Polyglot. Developer. Tolkienian. Westerosi. Trekkie. Loves Epic Fantasy and OSS. Evangelical Atheist. Open for Chats, Rants and Chants. Draws comics at Insta @abhnvkmr | https://abhnv.dev
Location
Bangalore, India
Education
Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science and Engineering)
I am trying to adopt the habit of "doing one thing per day" when it comes to my development. My full-time job is spent handling enterprise SEO and data analysis so I typically leave my development learning and endeavors to be handled elsewhere - life gets busy. I am trying to simplify it.
I'm trying to work on realizing that things that aren't strictly programming related are still a good use of my time.
I graduated last year and have found that I've had a hard time getting out of the mindset I was in during my undergrad where every minute was scheduled for either work, school, or self-directed programming related learning. To help myself pump the brakes a bit, I try to make sure I do 3 things each day:
Have a selfish activity: This sounds harsh, but it's meant to be truly an activity that is purely "me" focused. In my case, it's getting healthier through meal prep and exercise.
Have a non-screen related passion project: I still feel the drive to accomplish things, so I've found it helpful to have a project with goals I can lay out. I play multiple instruments and am working on recording songs that I've had on the back burner for ages.
Waste some time (but not too much): This also sounds bad, but I categorize this as an activity that is just doing whatever I want. Often this is me reading a non-technical book, watching some TV, or realizing how bad I am at video games. But either way, it's something that doesn't have boxes to check or goals to meet and helps me decompress for an hour before bed.
Now that I write this out, it sounds almost like I'm promoting bad habits I'm trying to adopt, but I guess I'm trying to teach myself the habit of investing in myself in ways that aren't just cranking out code all the time.
I think it's a good thing.
As a programmer we spend more and more times in from of our PCs,
So a good habit is to have some disconnected sessions to feel the life in another way than a screen.
When you come back to work your mind is more open and you feel more creative
I was in the exact same boat when I graduated. I personally recommend time-tracking if you can get into it. I use Toggl and it's wonderfully easy to get used to, imo. I recommend it because it can be easy to (over time) switch gears so much that you don't want to work on projects and just waste time or relax (something that happened to me..)
Updating my dev journal every day. I've tried lots of formats for this, but seems to work best is creating a note in Bear (favorite notetaking/journaling app) at the beginning of the week, and writing an entry at the end of my day. I typically try and jot down what I worked on, wins/accomplishments, things I got stuck on, things I learned, etc.
Bringing my lunch to work more often
Remembering to write stuff down - ideas, to-dos, etc - while I'm out and about. I wish I could do this with a notebook but it seems like the phone always ends up being the best place to jot stuff down.
mom of 4
loves: snow and skateboard, good whiskey and conversation; code is a given.
strengths: communicating value, having empathy, go from ominous to tangible.
given: being a really good human.
Trying to adopt good habits before I actually need them.
I have a side project I'm working on with my friend. We don't need user stories, for example - maybe a simpler to do would do. But I'm adamant to create them. Other than learning (that's a win in itself) we may come to a point where bringing on another person is necessary because he/she has the expertise to get that feature over the finish line. My thought: if we have these things in place prior to, it'll be way more efficient to onboard (like my fancy word??) lol.
But I try to do this with building relationships (that's a whole other post), and a few other areas.
Don't mind me, though - I come from a Disaster Recovery background..... prep before you need something is what you are supposed to do. I'm just getting around to personally practicing that paradigm. (sigh)
Making my bed. This is the most helpful tip I've gleamed from various sources.
Getting to the gym before taking my toddler to daycare. I'm struggling because toddlers don't always sleep through the night, and I often lack the constitution to get up an hour or two after I've finally fallen back asleep.
To not end a day without writing my notes on what happened (was I able to do everything I set out to do, what distracted me, what set me off etc)
To not start a day without writing my a) things to do b) goals c) a rough schedule of the day; calendar. Make sure that if there are frogs to eat, I do that first thing, if there are two frogs to eat, that I get to eat the bigger one first
To write for 2 hours a day (in 25 minutes sprints each, 10 mins break in interval), without editing or censorship; Some writer (I can't remember who) said "Done is better than perfect"
To read somebody else's code at least 5 hours a week, and try to understand and reason out what they were doing
Solve one problem on projecteuler.net each week (on a new language I'm trying to learn)
I fail miserably on all 5 in the sense that I can't do it consistently, but hey, I'm trying.
I already got the pen/paper down for a couple of years now. I bought really cheap (small) notebooks and pen and I've put them in a) my bag b) the office c) my other bag and d) 3 other places in the house. The notes gets transcribed and transferred to a markdown file which I keep on Dropbox; its done maybe 2 to 3 times a week
Train for my next marathon. It helps me clear my head and come up with better ideas to the things I'm working on. It helps me focus my thoughts. And it frees me from the computer screen and allows me to appreciate the beauty of the environment around me directly
Maintaining a decent (read: healthy) sleep schedule instead of being awake for 24-48 hours working on a project then sleeping for nearly 24 hours and starting over.
It'd be much better for me to go to bed around the same time, get up 'round the same time, and build a system/schedule around it instead of just going until I can't anymore.
If you've dealt with something similar, any suggestions would be much appreciated as I have a hell of a time getting to sleep at night.
Ryan is an engineer in the Sacramento Area with a focus in Python, Ruby, and Rust. Bash/Python Exercism mentor. Coding, physics, calculus, music, woodworking. Looking for work!
Less TV/streaming. Any time I buckle down and say "no TV today," I instantly get super productive. I just have to work to make it a habit to have something else (writing, coding, yard work, exercise) as my go-to relaxation right after work instead of plopping onto the couch.
Started coding at the age of 13, now a professional software engineer and Scrum Master, creating and maintaining enterprise solutions. Eat - Sleep - Code - Lift - Repeat 💪🏾
I am trying to learn meditation and my long-term goal is to do it on a daily basis.
After using different apps for it, I got stuck with two which I really like and recommend:
Both apps have basic lessons to get started on meditation.
7Mind
I like the simplicity of the app and that their sessions can build on top of each other. The voices are very calming and the app is clean and intuitive.
They also have a WebApp, how cool is that ?!
Mindbliss
To be honest, I just got to this app because of the MakeUseOfDeal. I like the concept of choosing goals and focusing on sessions based on these goals. The Recommended sessions on the home tab are sufficent for me at the moment.
Calm voices and the time a session will take is displayed so you can choose which one fits your available timeframe.
Better time tracking! I had a bit of a wake up call lately where a client was a bit annoyed that I hadn't broken down my hours well enough in an invoice.
I also found that I tended to do more work than I was actually charging for.
So my challenge now is to be more disciplined with time tracking, and to be more transparent with my progress.
For that, I found Harvest to be a pretty good app, which also allows my clients to check in with my daily log, before I actually generate them an invoice, so no nasty cost surprises.
The other good habit I'm working on is having healthy office hours, instead of working from, for example, 3PM to 3AM, which is fun, but not so good when you're getting long in the tooth and have to get up at 6 to get your kid to school, that's pretty rugged TBH ;).
Studied EE, designed hardware 5 years, then switched to photography for past 14 years. Now switched to all things Data. Mostly interested in Data Engineering and Complex Network Analysis.
Geek. Polyglot. Developer. Tolkienian. Westerosi. Trekkie. Loves Epic Fantasy and OSS. Evangelical Atheist. Open for Chats, Rants and Chants. Draws comics at Insta @abhnvkmr | https://abhnv.dev
Location
Bangalore, India
Education
Bachelor of Technology (Computer Science and Engineering)
Instead of picking up one thing or goal and forgetting it until it's the end of the year, this time I'm making it a point to do one of those every week.
Swimming regularly before work, learning how to ride a bike for the first time, smiling at people in NYC (especially if they have dogs), and tailoring my communication to my audience!
Using Fabulous to track my habits, mostly I like it because you are not able to uncheck task if it is marked as completed))) And now I have routines with 14 tasks to do, 7 of them I do at morning.
Former Java engineer turned Ruby engineer who is trying to understand Ruby and Rails, MacOS and a lot of other things. Worked at Flywheel, FNBO, ACI Worldwide.
Pausing to think about the problem and potential approaches before jumping in. Also, making sure I fully understand the requirements and coming up with any questions before starting on something.
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Mastering #javascript while creating resources for #devs to level up in their careers. I'm a 3X national 🏈 champion learning to be a champion of life 🏆😀.
For me it's carrying my journal/pen. I so often do not have it when I need it. And not just for taking notes, which I could do on my phone... but just to scribble on while I work through an idea, design, scheam, etc.
I have it with me at my desk, but I want to develop the habit of carrying it around with me and not leaving it at the last place I was.
I've been trying to just use my notebook more in general. Recently having gotten a fountain pen has helped me want to do it more. I definitely do want to try to get better at having it with me more though sometimes that's inconvenient.
OOOOOOooooh this is honestly my favorite habit and it helps so much! For anyone that also likes notebooks that have fancy notes (color coding, specific topics, revised notes for later review) it helps to have one separate notebook for those notes, and an easy-to-carry notebook for scribbles and idea jotting.
Sometimes when working through problems on paper, you might encounter some [method, topic, practice] that might help in the future and it'll definitely be a lot easier to have a proper section in a cleaner notebook instead of having it scattered amongst a sea of scribbles.
I forget it all the time too :)
I write all my drafts in the free pages of my paper agenda.
Glad I'm not alone 🙃
I've always got my journal with me and plenty of times it's been useful. You never know when you'll find info best saved for later, it relieves your brain of so much cognitive energy to just write stuff down for later.
i was subscribed to a monthly notebook/pen delivery and i found ways to remember because they started piling up, which forced me to think about it more.
Have you ever tried a Rocket Book? You can write on it and reuse the pages over and over by wiping them clean with a moist cloth. They also have an app where you can scan your pages so you can have a digital record of them. I have one and I love it. I had boxes of notebooks before and I just have the one Rocket Book now.
Yeah I have both the one you use with Frixion pens and the one you use with Crayola special markers. I only use them for traveling though because I still have tons of notebooks and pens from when I had the subscription. I want to use them up.
Although, probably when they are gone I’ll subscribe again because a couple of my friends run the subscription box service. Also if I don’t have notebooks piling up, I won’t have as much incentive to remember to bring my notebook with me.
Ah, I see! That’s cool that you already have a rocket book. I didn’t even know that they had crayola markers. 🤓
Getting a pocket-sized pen was really helpful for me to be better about carrying a pen with me. Full sized pens were always a pain in the butt to carry around if I didn't have a bag or backpack etc.
I really wish I could get into the habit of this. I have a journal. I have my favorite pen. I never remember to bring it anywhere.
Love this idea.
Reading for 30min ~ 1 Hour before 🛌😴
For me:
Read before go to bed.
Study at least 1 hour by day.
Write one article on my blog --- weekly.
Keep updated my personal trello.
It seems like we both got the memo for this agenda at the same time. Just add:
This is really hard, I tried it and I failed. I think that I couldn't fit that with my schedule. Good luck :D
Also use voice notes, if the people in the other end are busy and their can't pick up.
Foruntunately I receive more span that serious things (Honestly I don't know whether it's good or not)
So far, for me I have been consistent with this because on the side I find small projects that require minor fixes and make contributions to. Also I have a full side project that have features yet to be implemented that I can also push code to. Then there's the alternative of following along with expanded code tutorials, create my own own repo and commit my own code to my repo.
Voice notes definitely work. The goal here being to cut to the chase ASAP.
Well, simply reply to the "serious mails" only! Spam is called so, just because.
I'd like to know what good habits you are developing too.
That's a good idea, I'll use it maybe starting from a small project and I'll add new features.
As a developer I don't have a lot good habits, but I can mention, Use an Ide to write code besides use an linter to write code more cleaner, Memorize shortcuts (You can save time, instead of using the mouse), apply "Single Responsibility Principle", And the last one but not least every piece of code that I use from internet I try to see if this is the best aproach or if I can optimize it.
That's not too much I think and sometimes I feel I'm not a great developer, but I'm improving every day. :D
Wow, that's a very ambitious habit plan. After reading that you are a father of 2, studying 1 hour a day sounds even more impressive. How do you manage to take that time?
Yeah, it's an ambitious habit plan but nothing is easy when you are adapting to.
About managing my schedule is not hard for me (seriously), because of the 1-hour studying every day is at night from Monday to Friday, and weekends pretty early. During workdays I try to start to study at 8:30 PM - 9:00 PM this is after I share 3 hours with my family, some days I play chess 25 minutes trying to do something different to disconnect (I'm sorry, I like playing chess although I'm a terrible player). One thing that is helpful is that my current job is 15 minutes walking from home then I don't spend a lot of time going/coming back home.
One trick that I'm using is the reminders, for instance, I have one alarm from Monday to Friday at 9 pm that recalls me to study, is very useful when I'm distracted.
Another thing that is important to mention is that every week I review whether my actual schedule works or not, so I don't have for now a final version of it.
The others taks that I put in my main comment but read before go to bed, I'm doing in my job. I hope explained well, as you see it's not rocket science. Thanks a lot for your time reading :D
Thank you for these insights! :)
Not problem :D if you need more details or help send me a pm. :)
Not reaching for my phone when I'm around my family.
I'm an introvert, so my phone is my refuge when I'm in an overly stimulating environment, but I realized recently that I found myself too often responding to my kids by barely looking up from the screen and nodding.
I'm trying to break that and treat my phone as off-limits whenever my kids are around.
I think that's something a lot of us would do well to work on.
I'm not sure the dev.to database is strong enough to handle the full list 😋
Joke aside, top 5 would be:
man it's hard.
"5." is the final boss for me.I could discover something and write it in french being native in this language but to translate it in english it's another fighter path.
Very much like you. But French is the official language, not the native one. I read a lot in order to improve my English, but I've only started to write articles last year (just a few). I asked for help. I'm using Grammarly and ask for my friends' review on my posts. You don't have to write an essay, just something short will do.
If you'd like someone who speaks English as their native tongue to help with translations and working out kinks, I'd be more than happy to help! I'm all over the web as Alcha so feel free to contact me however works best if you're interested. I've also studied French for a few years in school so while I'm not fluent, I might have a slight advantage 😅
Ohh cool.i really appreciated.
See you soon in your DM
Working out regularly and reading 10 pages a day of a physical book.
I've gotten into audiobooks recently, which are great, but I want to make use of my local library more so I'm challenging myself to slow down and make dedicated time for reading.
pretty good
This right here is gold! I think it is high time psychologist conduct a research on how short posts affects the mental capacity for deep thinking.
i'm also trying to break the habit of getting up and playing games for an hour right away. it's hard because i feel like that wakes me up. i haven't succeeded even once yet :P
Reddit was my time stealer. I'm doing much better.
Perhaps you could try replacing it with a different activity that also wakes you up?
yeah every day i intend to read instead of play games, and then once my tea is ready i'm like "nope".
What I tend to do in this case is lock down my devices when I first wake up. Make it as difficult as possible to fire up a game when you wake up and as easy as possible to just pick up a book.
If you play online games, disable your network connection for the first few hours of being awake. If single player games are more your style, I'm honestly not too sure how'd you prevent that 🤔 Potentially you could use child locks or some special scripts to prevent it from launching and giving you a notification "YOU SHOULD BE READING!" Or something like that 😅
For me it's the iPad and match-3 games. I had this app installed that would block internet access to blacklisted sites like facebook and twitter. That worked to keep me from playing games because most of them use Facebook to log in. But I learned that if the app was already open I could still play :P.
Hahaha, that's the biggest issue with locking yourself out. If you find a workaround, it's hard to bring yourself to fix it again, it's like cheating the system 😜
Discover something new, every day, in every topics
(Forced curiosity)
I'll try to extend this list with speaking with people from other countries, cooking foreign meal, etc ...
It takes a lot of time, it's the perfect opposite of productivity, but it's something we can do as human (computer don't love random :) ). It helped me to find awesome artists, nice photography subject, great meal, new way to work, new way to think, fun anecdotes and so much.
It's the best way to break sameness and forget a bad day :)
Workout more
Practice spanish
Work on side project more regurlarly and not just when I'm motivated
how do you for your side projects?
if you have any recipe give me please
When I can, I stay a bit more at my workplace to work on my side projects (they're cool with it) for two reasons: I know I'm productive with this setup and recently as soon as I got home I had no motivation to get back to "work", the rhythm was broken. It's not much, 30min to 1 hour but at least it's regularly and that's the most important.
Thanks i'll try if it works for me
Going to nature or riding the bike regularly. I usually find myself in the office even in the evening hours... and so I should be able to stand up from desk, leave work, leave own projects for a bit and go...
The idea of 1%∞ (One percent infinity):
Link to the whole blog
How much time ya got?
I think the big ones are:
Never stop improving! 💪🏼
Commit at least one thing to Github everyday, no mater how small.
Spending less time on social media. During work and my own time. It's distracting, adds little to my life, and keeps me from doing more important things.
Trying to use my debugger more often than I use
console.log(javascript)I am cultivating a few;
1) read every day: It can be a blog, and article, a chapter in one of the many books that I’m reading.
2) practice new skills every day: It can be on hackerrank or Enki. I am on a mission to level up my Frontend skills, as well as Python and go as we have micro services at my new job written in those languages.
3) cultivate patience and empathy: I struggle with being intolerant or closed-minded to new ideas or concepts that I feel aren’t worth discussion sometimes. I am making an effort to listen with the intent of understanding, not waiting for my turn to respond.
Giving compliments to my friends instead of just thinking about them in my head. I used to see my friends and think, "cool shoes", "nice shirt", etc...but I've noticed that since I've started verbally expressing these sentiments, the genuine gratitude they give back makes me smile.
Telling my friends and family I love them. Over the past few years I've abruptly lost people in my life and I would have these feelings of regret that I never showed them enough appreciation and what not. It's definitely gotten easier and less awkward.
Drink a lot of water. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants (I read that somewhere, I forgot...but it stuck with me). It's working so far - my physician says I'm pretty healthy so I believe her.
Mine is doing more reading about software and programming as a whole. I'm good at reading about the code specifics and details, but my broader understanding has suffered. I've got a few books coming in the mail and I hope to make reading them all a regular thing, whether it's skimming or taking notes.
I have left a couple replies on replies from others. The one thing I want to add as a reply that is very personal to me is: Being more expressive.
I only have this one life and I have come to find that joy is a result of the expression of and for the things and ones you love.
Read at least 1 hour every day. preferably before bed. (I see this is quite popular)
Write a blog/"how to" post when I learn something new. Helps a lot.
Excercise daily (Not that easy)
Your #2 is something I've been trying to work on as well. Like I know that if I just spent an hour trying to figure something out then there's got to be someone else out there with the same issue and maybe my solution is exactly what they need.
Eating breakfast before I head to the office. Getting up and making eggs and bacon every morning would be such a better start.
I did this when I worked for a tech company in the bay area, it was truly amazing how something as simple as making yourself breakfast in the morning can really start your day off better. I feel like it's something to do with 1) just doing something simple when you wake up, so you feel accomplished, and 2) it's nice to feed yourself 😋
After I turned 24, I am trying to
Let's see how many of these I'm still doing by the end of this year.
I am trying to adopt the habit of "doing one thing per day" when it comes to my development. My full-time job is spent handling enterprise SEO and data analysis so I typically leave my development learning and endeavors to be handled elsewhere - life gets busy. I am trying to simplify it.
I'm trying to work on realizing that things that aren't strictly programming related are still a good use of my time.
I graduated last year and have found that I've had a hard time getting out of the mindset I was in during my undergrad where every minute was scheduled for either work, school, or self-directed programming related learning. To help myself pump the brakes a bit, I try to make sure I do 3 things each day:
Have a selfish activity: This sounds harsh, but it's meant to be truly an activity that is purely "me" focused. In my case, it's getting healthier through meal prep and exercise.
Have a non-screen related passion project: I still feel the drive to accomplish things, so I've found it helpful to have a project with goals I can lay out. I play multiple instruments and am working on recording songs that I've had on the back burner for ages.
Waste some time (but not too much): This also sounds bad, but I categorize this as an activity that is just doing whatever I want. Often this is me reading a non-technical book, watching some TV, or realizing how bad I am at video games. But either way, it's something that doesn't have boxes to check or goals to meet and helps me decompress for an hour before bed.
Now that I write this out, it sounds almost like I'm promoting bad habits I'm trying to adopt, but I guess I'm trying to teach myself the habit of investing in myself in ways that aren't just cranking out code all the time.
I think it's a good thing.
As a programmer we spend more and more times in from of our PCs,
So a good habit is to have some disconnected sessions to feel the life in another way than a screen.
When you come back to work your mind is more open and you feel more creative
I was in the exact same boat when I graduated. I personally recommend time-tracking if you can get into it. I use Toggl and it's wonderfully easy to get used to, imo. I recommend it because it can be easy to (over time) switch gears so much that you don't want to work on projects and just waste time or relax (something that happened to me..)
Thank you for the recommendation, I will give Toggl a try!
Updating my dev journal every day. I've tried lots of formats for this, but seems to work best is creating a note in Bear (favorite notetaking/journaling app) at the beginning of the week, and writing an entry at the end of my day. I typically try and jot down what I worked on, wins/accomplishments, things I got stuck on, things I learned, etc.
Bringing my lunch to work more often
Remembering to write stuff down - ideas, to-dos, etc - while I'm out and about. I wish I could do this with a notebook but it seems like the phone always ends up being the best place to jot stuff down.
Trying to adopt good habits before I actually need them.
I have a side project I'm working on with my friend. We don't need user stories, for example - maybe a simpler to do would do. But I'm adamant to create them. Other than learning (that's a win in itself) we may come to a point where bringing on another person is necessary because he/she has the expertise to get that feature over the finish line. My thought: if we have these things in place prior to, it'll be way more efficient to onboard (like my fancy word??) lol.
But I try to do this with building relationships (that's a whole other post), and a few other areas.
Don't mind me, though - I come from a Disaster Recovery background..... prep before you need something is what you are supposed to do. I'm just getting around to personally practicing that paradigm. (sigh)
I fail miserably on all 5 in the sense that I can't do it consistently, but hey, I'm trying.
I already got the pen/paper down for a couple of years now. I bought really cheap (small) notebooks and pen and I've put them in a) my bag b) the office c) my other bag and d) 3 other places in the house. The notes gets transcribed and transferred to a markdown file which I keep on Dropbox; its done maybe 2 to 3 times a week
Train for my next marathon. It helps me clear my head and come up with better ideas to the things I'm working on. It helps me focus my thoughts. And it frees me from the computer screen and allows me to appreciate the beauty of the environment around me directly
Maintaining a decent (read: healthy) sleep schedule instead of being awake for 24-48 hours working on a project then sleeping for nearly 24 hours and starting over.
It'd be much better for me to go to bed around the same time, get up 'round the same time, and build a system/schedule around it instead of just going until I can't anymore.
If you've dealt with something similar, any suggestions would be much appreciated as I have a hell of a time getting to sleep at night.
From monday to friday at 9 a.M. I'm trying to set my computer apart and do some excercise. It's not easy, but my back is getting better.
Less TV/streaming. Any time I buckle down and say "no TV today," I instantly get super productive. I just have to work to make it a habit to have something else (writing, coding, yard work, exercise) as my go-to relaxation right after work instead of plopping onto the couch.
I am trying to learn meditation and my long-term goal is to do it on a daily basis.
After using different apps for it, I got stuck with two which I really like and recommend:
Both apps have basic lessons to get started on meditation.
7Mind
I like the simplicity of the app and that their sessions can build on top of each other. The voices are very calming and the app is clean and intuitive.
They also have a WebApp, how cool is that ?!
Mindbliss
To be honest, I just got to this app because of the MakeUseOfDeal. I like the concept of choosing goals and focusing on sessions based on these goals. The Recommended sessions on the home tab are sufficent for me at the moment.
Calm voices and the time a session will take is displayed so you can choose which one fits your available timeframe.
Some of my plans:
I'm trying to read (I am reading sapiens), sleep 8 hours and workout frequently. What habits have you already established?
Better time tracking! I had a bit of a wake up call lately where a client was a bit annoyed that I hadn't broken down my hours well enough in an invoice.
I also found that I tended to do more work than I was actually charging for.
So my challenge now is to be more disciplined with time tracking, and to be more transparent with my progress.
For that, I found Harvest to be a pretty good app, which also allows my clients to check in with my daily log, before I actually generate them an invoice, so no nasty cost surprises.
The other good habit I'm working on is having healthy office hours, instead of working from, for example, 3PM to 3AM, which is fun, but not so good when you're getting long in the tooth and have to get up at 6 to get your kid to school, that's pretty rugged TBH ;).
Definitely how I feel about everything.
Creating a strict schedule and daily structure, and not using "feeling tired" to procrastinate/take breaks.
Abandoning bad habits is good habit I would adopt for sure.
just kidding, if there is somethings I would like to change in my habits, they would be:
what is Spectrum?
Eating more vegetables on a regular basis.
Having two hours of intense, distraction free practice session in coding every day.
Drawing/painting something once a day.
Blogging once a week.
For me it is trying to stay away from the computer after 10 pm
Make tommorow's plan before sleep. Wake up early. Sleep 8 hours max.
Write blogs more often
Talk with more and more people
Become less insecure in relationships
Living life in the moment
Instead of picking up one thing or goal and forgetting it until it's the end of the year, this time I'm making it a point to do one of those every week.
Swimming regularly before work, learning how to ride a bike for the first time, smiling at people in NYC (especially if they have dogs), and tailoring my communication to my audience!
Dead-heading my rose bushes every day, and taking the time to look at clouds whenever possible.
A morning routine.
Working out more and trying to eat better.
Using Fabulous to track my habits, mostly I like it because you are not able to uncheck task if it is marked as completed))) And now I have routines with 14 tasks to do, 7 of them I do at morning.
Writing unit test :(
Spend a half hour per day learnding new tech
Being ok knowing I have so much to learnd
Spending time on self care and with my loved ones
SIC - Ralph Wiggum is my hero.
Get more sleep, write more (fiction, novels and stuff), draw to fight anxiety...
Not checking Slack too often :P
Sleep and wake up early
Pausing to think about the problem and potential approaches before jumping in. Also, making sure I fully understand the requirements and coming up with any questions before starting on something.
Watch less crap on YouTube in the evening and do something useful like even just adding 1 part to a model boat I am (very slowly) building.
I've been pretty good this week so far :)
I am trying to consistently post one article each month on dev.to
Keeping a positive state of mind when things aren't going well with programming. Just learning every obstacle is a chance for me to get better.