Coding isn’t just what you do while you are in front of a computer. Of course, a good keyboard, monitor, mouse will make your work more comfortable. This won’t make your code better, but surely will make you feel better when you get in front of your computer to do some coding. However, that are just things that you use. Part of what makes programming feels better is what you you do before, while and after coding that enhances that practice for you. Today I’m going to share how I start my day in a way that makes me perform better, but also that makes me happier and more comfortable coding.
The Day Before
All starts with the end of the previous day. I reserve part of the end of my working day to clean any mess I made on my working desk and to plan the next day.
As you can see on the photo above of my desk, there is a teapot, a small cup, some pens, some mechanical pencils and a notebook. That is what I’m using while writing the first draft of this post. I need to clean it before ending my shift, so I can start the next day with a clean desk, an idea shared on my previous post that you can read bellow:
The next step is to define what I’ll be working on the next day. Any type of todo list will do here. I simply write down, on the notebook you saw, a list of meetings that I have to attend to and a list of tasks I want to work on the next day. This list of tasks will include anything that I want to remember, from coding tasks, work, ideas that I want to work on, personal projects or exercises, like programming Katas or yoga nidra.
With this, you end your day with a clean environment and already knowing what you will do on the next day. No time wasted thinking about what could you do or dealing with a mess you created the day before while dealing with a problem or just eating in front of your computer (please, avoid this if you can).
Before Working
Since everything related to planning was done on the day before, I start the day without any worries. I already know what I need to do and when. So I wake up, prepare some tea or coffee and eat my breakfast while reading some book, manga or comic. Reading is a way, for me, to start my day slowly. I would love to say that I’m a person that is totally focused on my tea, coffee and food. But I'm not at that level yet.
After that, I’ll go for a walk or run for half an hour. I prefer to do this without any headset or phone. This is a way to ensure that, at least for an extra half an hour, I won't use any technology. I already work in front of a computer and will be using one for more than 8 hours a day. At least on the mornings I'm tech free.
Not that I hate technologies, video games or anything. It's the other way around. Having some disconnected time makes me value technology more, increase my well being and reserves sometime for me to think over everything I did and everything I want to do during my day. It's a way for my brain to acknowledge and decide what he'll do with every piece of information I accumulated during the day. Be it reading books, articles, just dealing with work or being in social media.
During Work
On working hours, my main challenge is to deal with energy levels. Everything is easy if I’m dealing with an energizing task, but we all know that is not always the reality. We also need to work on tasks that are easier or harder than we wanted it to be. As programmers we need to study, search for solutions and clues, reproduce random bugs that only happens if the user is using a random old browser and a slow 3g connection.
Usually, my working day starts with me looking at messages, reviewing PRs and reviewing my plan for the day. After that, I start working on a ticket or continue the work I’ve left the day before. When it’s midday, I stop for lunch. I do an hour or an hour and a half lunch. I use this time to relax and energize. If I have the time, I also use half an hour to study something or to code something unrelated to work. On the evening I have some meetings. Sometimes it’s just a 15 minutes daily, but sometimes there are other calls. By 6-6:30PM, I’ll go back to the “The Day Before” part of my day again and plan for the next day.
Energy level
We need a routine to deal with different energy levels and tickets that demands more from us. That will change from person to person, because each one of us have different changes in energy during the day. In my case, I start the day slow, but ramp up quickly with the power of caffeine. Then I get slow again around 9-9:30AM. I drink some coffee and get energized again for the rest of the morning. After lunch I can get a bit slower, but around 2PM I’m back up and I feel energized until 5PM. From 5-8PM I’m back on my slow phase, but after that I feel better until 10-11PM.
The example above is what happens during my usual day. However, it’s important to know that everything depends on what I’m doing. If I’m working on a task that I’m really into, I can forget the time, because I’m feeling up. And the same is true the other way around. If I’m forced to work on a boring task for too long, I might feel tired on hours that I wouldn’t.
It’s important to keep tapping into yourself to know your energy level and know what really gives you energy. For me, reading a novel or a manga, meditating, walking without any technology near me and watching anime are things that energize me, while navigating on social media and reading articles on the web makes me feel tired. It is also important that you are truthful with yourself. From the list I added above, I love to navigate on social media looking at memes and laughing and I think meditation is boring, but what they make me after is different than my feelings towards the activity. So keep you eyes up for how they make you feel not only during the activity, but after.
All of this is a work in progress. I still have a lot to learn and a lot to test. So, if you have a different routine, any tips you want to share or anything you wanted me to dive into, feel free to comment bellow.