Don't Procrastinate on your personal projects

billyanderson291 — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:04:27 +0000

We all have the habit of delaying our work and passing it on to the next day. But most importantly programmers delay one thing the most: their Side-projects. Everybody is guilty of procrastination, and nobody is a stranger to it, but while procrastinating our work can not be the best option, procrastinating our own personal projects is. Here are 3 reasons why we should not procrastinate and do our projects in free time:

Future Assets

Delaying projects makes you lose on a lot of opportunities coming your way. When the habit of delaying things always surrounds you, you do not realize the precious opportunities and forget to make use of them. Any new opportunity that comes your way gets missed. Remember, most opportunities come around only once. You don't even know that your personal idea might become the next tech giant in the future, like GitHub or accidentally, you solved a problem that some people face. At least, you can sell this project to a suitable buyer.

You lower your self-esteem

Procrastination and self-esteem are one of those vicious circles you can never get out of. You tend to procrastinate because of low self-esteem, and procrastination then further lowers your self-esteem. With low self-esteem, you hold yourself back to improve your work and productivity. What happens is our side projects make us face new challenges since we mostly do the same work in our jobs. When we face new challenges, we improve our skills and it helps make us feel more proud of our coding brain. But the lack of perseverance, which is one of the main causes of procrastination. The worst part about procrastination is that you lose out on your precious time without even realizing it. Procrastination and the habit of delaying your pending work prevent you from completing your goals and destroy your chances of becoming better in life.

Ruin Career

With low self-esteem and fewer goal fulfillment, you seem to miss out on your deadlines and targets. You lose excitement to our main job and now, you don't enjoy the moments once you thought will be your best. Side projects help us learn new things which help in our job. We also are more excited when a new task comes into our job and finds it an immense opportunity. Your lack of interest in coding will result in something bad for the future. You might miss out on appraisals, incentives, and promotions, and eventually ruin your career. This leads to an adverse consequence on your career growth. Moreover, it is very frustrating to lose out on time and career because of these silly things like lethargy, boredom, etc.

So Get Up on Weekends and Work on your personal projects. Btw, here are some DEV.TO community thoughts on this.

Computer Eye Strain - The Curse of Coding during this pandemic

billyanderson291 — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 12:12:09 +0000

Work from home has become the new normal, and the amount of time you spend on computer screens has increased dramatically. Your work obligations often prohibit you from restricting your time in front of the computer and demand intense concentration on digital screens. It can adversely affect your eyes, leading to computer eye strain.

Computer eye strain refers to eye strain caused by the increasing use of laptops and computers for work and the brightness of your monitor screens. Now, we coders do coding at our office too, but we also get breaks there where we talk to our peers as well as there are many sources of natural lights in most offices. These reduce the chances of computer eye strain. But at home during this pandemic, we have to sit for long hours staring at our computers since our meetings also happen there. We also do more online shopping and for entertainment, computer or mobile are also the best options currently. One disadvantage is also that we feel uncomfortable when doing our side-projects as well.

First, let us look at some of the common signs of computer eye strain include:

Blurry vision
Reduced focus and concentration
Headache
Eyestrain
Dry eyes

If you feel any of the above symptoms, then it is not only bad for your eyes, but also for your mental health. Here I present 5 ways to get rid of this problem:

Blink and refresh your eyes

Blinking frequently helps in refreshing and moisturizing your eyes. Blinking produces tears and mucus across your eyes and hydrates them. However, many people blink less than usual when working at a computer. When you blink less, the tears in your eyes evaporate, resulting in eye strain and dry eyes. So, train yourself to blink after writing a few lines of codes & reading a few paragraphs on your screen and reduce your chances of eye strain. A 2009 study has proved that increased blinking rate reduces symptoms of computer eye strain. The blink rate should be more than 11 times per minute.

Adjust the lighting

Computer eye strain can be caused if your light settings are not adequate. It can be caused either by excessive brightness or dim lights; hence there needs to be a balanced light setting. For example, keep the lights softly lit at night (don't work at night) and use natural lighting in the morning if possible. Avoid working under bright florescent lights because it increases the pressure in your eyes. Maintaining balanced lighting can reduce the pressure in your eyes, thereby reducing the chances of computer eye strain.

Adjust your monitor settings

It is important to ensure that you are looking at your computer at the correct distance. Your screen should be an arm’s length away from you, and the top of the screen should be at the level of your eyes. Even the handheld digital devices like mobiles and tablets should be read at below eye level. You also need to adjust your screen settings and minimize the glare from your screens. Adjust the display, contrast, brightness, text size, according to your comfort to reduce eye strain. You can also install an anti-glare screen protector to prevent the harmful blue rays from reaching your eyes.

Exercise your eyes

Your eyes form an important part of your body and need adequate care. It is crucial to prevent computer eye strain by practicing some eye exercises. To begin with, you can practice rubbing your eyes every two or three hours in a circular motion to maintain the blood flow in them. You should also use the 20-20-20 screen rule, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes, to give your eyes a break. It will help if you imbibe specific eye exercises like rotation and relaxation in your regular exercise routine. These exercises are simple and effective ways to reduce computer eye strain. An easy and simple eye strain remedy I found on the internet is to take occasional breaks from your work, rub your hands, and place the warm palm against your eyes for 30 seconds.

Use computer glasses

Consult your doctor to understand if you need computer glasses to reduce eye strain. Computer glasses come with a UV blue coating which reflects the harmful digital blue rays away from your eyes. They reduce your exposure to the blue light and help in reducing eye strain. Moreover, they are as comfortable as your regular glasses and come with a special tinted coating to protect your eyes.

Computer eye strain has become a common condition during the pandemic (before the pandemic, it was already more than 50%), with excessive use of digital devices. Maintaining your eye health is the key to remaining healthy in the future and avoiding any severe vision problems. With the tips mentioned above, you can eliminate computer eye strain by making changes in your daily habits and the surrounding environment. So, follow these tips and maintain healthy eyes and vision.

DEV Community: billyanderson291