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Solomon Eseme -
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Top comments (66)
I think overworking is a major one, and it has caused me to burnout countless times.
Yeah staying awake for a long time at night is a major one!
I got rid of that one after I had many minor health issues last year. Now I value my sleep more than programming or learning
Very true
I'll second this
It's impossible to learn everything. There is way too much. Learn about things you need. Maybe a surface level of adjacent things. Build a deep expertise in your core skills.
Donβt waste your time learning everything
Waylon Walker γ» Feb 19 γ» 2 min read
I sometimes agree to the point you are making here but seeing this person (linkedin.com/in/vimaldaga/ ) always change my mind that you can be expert in anything you want and It is not a waste of time.
What are your views on this?
I dont think that you can be an expert in anything. Anything is a bit broad. There are always going to be topics that take a lifetime, the right person, a bit of luck, and the right developments in the surrounding industry. These things produce historical figures like "Einstein". There are also going to be things that require teams of people, the chrome "V8 Engine" for instance.
Now can you achieve working expertise at, Software Engineering, Data Science, Business, Entrepreneurship, JavaScript, Python, Blogging, ... Things that are achievable by a broad audience ( requiring a bit less luck and raw talent ).
Can you be an expert at anything Heck yes
Can you be an expert at everything Definitely Not
So true, even Einstein couldn't be an expert at "anything", and he would have been the first to admit it. I guess true mastery lies in knowing your limits!
I checked out his profile, and I see he's an expert (or at least knowledgeable) in cloud/devops and in big data, those 2 fields - not in "everything" (for example, web dev or mobile dev aren't mentioned).
π― Big difference between Anything and Everything.
Your own personal talents, skills, and experience limit what is reasonable to go for.
A few that come to mind (and had happened to me before).
I probably could go on and on but those are just a few π
I read that if you take a break, but the break involves another screen, your brain really doesn't actually reap the benefits of the break.
So moving from your computer, plopping on the couch and scrolling Reddit etc. is really not what you want to be doing if you can help it.
Exactly! That's what I tell some students on calls. Having a structure of work & break times (like the Pomodoro technique)
And the important thing is that when people are working, they try to focus and get stuff done. And when they are taking the break, they fully disengage from pc or phone and just go for a walk, go to the bathroom, make a drink, talk with someone or whatever to make it an actual break.
amen..
Please go on and write a post π
Hahaha if it will help you then I'm surely going to schedule that post. π
Whosever is reading this: your posture is probably terrible right now, haha.
It was! Thank you for the correction. Lol
Thanks for the reminder!
Here's one I suspect to be prevalent, or at least it's a bad one of mine:
Never not working on a problem in the back of your mind... Sometimes I keep an issue spinning around in my head all weekend when I'd be better off forgetting about it and coming back on Monday. This probably afflicts me particularly badly as an entrepreneur with a bit more at stake, but I've had this problem in most of my work forever.
That's very true, and it's worse with working from home at the moment. It can mean that I'm not all there for family even if I'm not at my computer. Maybe the key is to take more time out to ponder things during the working day.
In the last couple weeks I've been doing a mid-day workout... Which for me is a weighted-vest walk/light jog with an audiobook. Basically taking my audiobook/podcast habit and making it more of a workout.
The break is nice, and the exercise definitely helps my brain health and gives clarity.
Googling weighted vest now π
Yay!
Habits are hard to form, even when I had the idea to take on this routine, the vest sat around unused for several weeks before I truly kicked it in, but now I feel like I'm over the hump and really enjoying making time for it.
No approach/routine works for everyone, but I do think exercise really is about the best thing one can do with any number of feelings of stress, anxiety, etc.
I agree, I need to build a replacement for the weekly parkrun as that made such a difference the last year but it won't start again any time soon I expect
Saying YES to everything! Sometimes saying NO is a life-saver
Agreed! Also, underestimating is very popular among devs
Which may be not only a dev problem, but also a management problem. Tom DeMarco points out that we don't estimate well because we get so little practice at it. What we call 'estimation' is often actually haggling over what the schedule will be, at times going up against an attitude of "What's the earliest you can't prove you won't be done?" Between that and a potential ego motivation to make shorter estimates, it's not surprising that underestimating is common.
Great one
Becoming passive-aggressive on pull request reviews because it makes them feel superior and demonstrate their experience. Like a virus that, if someone does it to you as a junior, you'll do it right back as a senior. Kills productivity and becomes totally self-defeating.
Developer ego, not having open mind
I always thought that Programmers and Mathematicians are alike Analytical, Smart, Thinkers, and Introverts. The problems are also the same that includes Overthinking, Unable to fit in with regular people, unable to maintain emotional health, and inability to turn off the mind, just a few thing on the top of my mind.
Considering themselves senior enough to ignore practicing.
PS: This is what I am going through
In my opinion a very harmful one that developers deal with is not separating out home and work. Don't take your work home, and in my opinion that even includes researching and learning for your job.
It's one thing to learn/do more research because you're interested in it and you enjoy it. It's another thing to constantly do work/research for your job outside of work at home. I really believe jobs need to pay and budget that time into your everyday job function. I see this especially with new developers. They feel so much pressure to learn and make their employers happy that they end up burning themselves out by doing all kinds of things outside of normal work hours. That's a big thing I stress when mentoring new developers. Separate out the work and home. Don't feel pressure to catch-up on the weekends.
Spending too much time working on a feature that was not needed.
i.e. lack of understanding the business.
Over working and multi-tasking with watching videos or listening to podcasts while coding.