Currently, I am WFH. In my first job, I did stupid things like sleeping 8 hours in total the whole week because I wanted to finish before the deadline for my first project. Also, I was working as a freelancer and it was a complete mess. Lots of burnout everywhere I had times where I have to sleep 13-16 hours to compensate or taking 2 or 3 days off to recover. Lucky for me I met really great experienced software engineer who taught me that to be a software engineer you need to work as if you were on a marathon, not a sprint.
What works for me is really counter-intuitive and I discover it by doing several experiments with different methods, I am using the Pomodoro technique I do a heavy task 30 min (instead of 25 min) then I rest doing more lightweight tasks 5/10/15 min like checking the issue tracking platform of my projects, checking my emails, organizing meetings, watching a video or reading an article here in DEV.to, if I am getting stress I try to take a break do the dishes or cleaning my room, or repairing something inside my house, or playing guitar, or going out to buy things. I have never been burned out again and I am more productive than ever. By taking these breaks I found that it makes me think more clearly about what I am doing with the side effect that I am improving other aspects of my personal life. It is super-efficient.
As long as I stick to this regiment and by working 7 hours at most daily. I have to sleep for 7 hours to recover. And everything is super easy, however anytime I put 1, 2, or 3 more extra hours into work, everything falls apart and I start sleeping 8-10 hours my whole schedule moves, and I spend more time trying to fixing it than the extra effort.
Although many managers don't like this regimen, the industry needs to think more about the dangers of software developers working tired. It is more productive to add something well done than adding something bad done that down the road is going to cost more to fix it. And more bad things you gather together the cost of the project grows exponentially.
Maker of software products and a builder of teams. Director of Engineering
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Thanks for sharing! Love what you are doing with the Pomodoro technique. I've actually tried using that but could not stick to it... maybe it was too regimented for me. But hearing that you also shifted to lightweight tasks for different intervals of time makes it sound much more interesting. I think I'm going to give it another shot and experiment with your approach 🤓. Thank you!
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Currently, I am WFH. In my first job, I did stupid things like sleeping 8 hours in total the whole week because I wanted to finish before the deadline for my first project. Also, I was working as a freelancer and it was a complete mess. Lots of burnout everywhere I had times where I have to sleep 13-16 hours to compensate or taking 2 or 3 days off to recover. Lucky for me I met really great experienced software engineer who taught me that to be a software engineer you need to work as if you were on a marathon, not a sprint.
What works for me is really counter-intuitive and I discover it by doing several experiments with different methods, I am using the Pomodoro technique I do a heavy task 30 min (instead of 25 min) then I rest doing more lightweight tasks 5/10/15 min like checking the issue tracking platform of my projects, checking my emails, organizing meetings, watching a video or reading an article here in DEV.to, if I am getting stress I try to take a break do the dishes or cleaning my room, or repairing something inside my house, or playing guitar, or going out to buy things. I have never been burned out again and I am more productive than ever. By taking these breaks I found that it makes me think more clearly about what I am doing with the side effect that I am improving other aspects of my personal life. It is super-efficient.
As long as I stick to this regiment and by working 7 hours at most daily. I have to sleep for 7 hours to recover. And everything is super easy, however anytime I put 1, 2, or 3 more extra hours into work, everything falls apart and I start sleeping 8-10 hours my whole schedule moves, and I spend more time trying to fixing it than the extra effort.
Although many managers don't like this regimen, the industry needs to think more about the dangers of software developers working tired. It is more productive to add something well done than adding something bad done that down the road is going to cost more to fix it. And more bad things you gather together the cost of the project grows exponentially.
Thanks for sharing! Love what you are doing with the Pomodoro technique. I've actually tried using that but could not stick to it... maybe it was too regimented for me. But hearing that you also shifted to lightweight tasks for different intervals of time makes it sound much more interesting. I think I'm going to give it another shot and experiment with your approach 🤓. Thank you!