As a Software Quality Assurance by day and Software Engineering student at night, I have my difficulties trying to improve my coding skills during the day. Having a job, studying, (beautiful) girlfriend, family and friends, I sometimes struggle when I want to take a moment for me to code. While reading one of the posts here at Dev.to I found someone that recommended to wake up 1 hour earlier in the morning to do what i wanted, and that really helped... until I had so much homework to do that... well, I wanted to sleep at least 5 hours.
For motivation purposes I've been thinking on building a birthday webpage for my girlfriend's birthday during the #100DaysOfCode challenge that I recently get to know about
So I came up with this question for you all!, What is the best moment for you to code (you can add any ritual you do for preparation <('-'<) (>'-')> ).
Top comments (22)
Night after 22:00
8am, when office is empty
Around 2PM (when I typically get my second cup of coffee for the day), is when I usually get into a groove. Mornings are frequently filled with meetings, answering emails, and various other interruptions, but mid to late afternoon I can usually get a good chunk of time to work, freshly caffeinated and with few distractions.
With a lot of caffeine: any time of the day.
Without: mostly by night, after 10pm until... whenever I fall asleep on my keyboard, usually 2 or 3am. But I don't do that often anymore, having a day job and all.
After 10pm.
Got leftover thoughts from work out of my head, too late to do anything in the household, not hungry anymore. So nothing to distract me from coding besides netflix..but that has to be turned off if things get serious.
I always used to think that I'm more productive by morning doing stuff early. But lately because of people living in my house and me not having the right tools to code uninterruptedly, I've been getting into the habit of doing all my important work by night.
I start around 10pm and then do a whole work sprint until 1-1:30 am and then go to sleep. My productivity has increased radically although I cannot say the same thing about my health.
Generally I am lucky enough to work swing shift. So I have several hours before work. To code but I also tend to just work on stuff after I get home. I really dont like the idea of getting up a hour earlier unless its my last choice. As I personally just feel more exhausted than any thing if I dont get enough sleep. Past this I will really code any chance I get it. Whether on my break/lunch at work or when I get even 15 to 20 minutes at home ect.
8am - lunch (always somehow much less productive after lunch 🤔).
Slam an espresso on the train ride into the office and I am off!
Once I've gotten past the day's todo's, so like 11am. Is when I really get into the groove.
It depends on the day for me at work, but I typically find myself being productive from 2-4 and again from 5-7.
From my experience, it's all about finding when you get that inspiration or motivation to make progress and taking advantage of the times when you get in the groove. Once you're in it, try not to break from it until you start becoming mentally tired.