LebGeeks

Odaym

Member

I need to focus

I haven't been programming professionally for long now, it's been a year since I've started. Before that, I used to code for fun and build things for fun. I used to sit there and for a long time either coding for fun or for university assignments, projects and finally my senior project. I would sit there and learn things, feel excited, tuned completely towards what I was doing and above all, I was focused!

Now with the work environment I find that I'm not like that anymore and I've sort of lost that tuned in feeling I used to get. Like I'm somehow new to "this whole thing". I'm now certain that it is because of the distractions around me all the time, how can I keep them to a minimum? Do you face this as well?

It doesn't matter what method you use to fix this, please share anything you like if you feel you relate to this as well. Thanks

rolf

Member

Re: I need to focus

Hello,
I was just experiencing that lately. I thought I would never find motivation again. Just 1/2 hour ago, I noticed that once I tried to start working, I had "restless leg syndrome". I just concentrated on stopping it, and starting work, and once I did (with good music in my earphones), I was satisfied to make progress. Just the satisfaction of seeing good work being done in front of me kept me going for a little while.

Thanks for sharing this with us, it feels good to see that I'm not the only one going through such things.
BTW, here is what I'm listening to, maybe that helps (no idea what your tastes are, but who knows...):
http://8tracks.com/drownbynumbers/memorial

I had a "coding stint" a long time ago, where I developed something "for fun", it was a for someone I knew but they never used it. I've tried reproducing this process, because back then I coded the whole thing in one weekend, never really succeeded, but now I am doing stuff that will be used and more appreciated - and I am happy if I manage to pick up and maintain a proper rate.

raja

Member

Re: I need to focus

Anyone who's done programming as a profession rather than a hobby goes through this every once in a while. I had a period of complete burnout last year where I didn't have a single commit for over 14 days. I was there, in front of the laptop every day for at least 8hrs and yet nothing useful got done.

The way I usually snap out of this most of the time(otherwise it can drag on even longer) is to:

1) Find a job that's interesting to you or at least where a sizeable chunk of your responsibilities are things that you find interesting. If you're just going through the motions all the time there's not much you can do, really. I quit my first job and joined a startup 2 years ago because of this problem. I felt like I was maybe giving 20-ish % of my peak sustainable output(as opposed to peak output when working 20hr days and then a burnout 3 days later).

2) If you have 1, you can usually get yourself "in the zone" so to speak by starting to work on something interesting and from there dive into the more boring bits while you're on a roll. It's important not to leave all the boring stuff for the end as you will be back to square 1 after you're done with the interesting tasks.

3) Set yourself clear deadlines for items that are small enough that you can actually estimate how long they take(they shouldn't be things that take more than 1~2hrs each, otherwise they should be broken down into smaller chunks). Keep a todo list where you can get that satisfying feeling of ticking/scratching off an item once it's done. You should be able to look at your list and go "I want to finish these 5..10 things today". It helps if this list is shared with whoever is working with you or supervising you(team members, PM, boss, etc...) so they see you visibly making progress and you start feeling that making progress visibly affects how they perceive you. This is as opposed to the way these things usually go: "when will component X be done" - "uhhhh, in 2 weeks" ... 2 weeks later "Is it done?" "Not yet 1 more week", etc, etc... We use Trello for this at work and it's been immensely useful.

4) If all else fails, ignore everything, your bosses and whoever else and just work on whatever you want for a couple of days. Be it pet projects that are not even work-related or just a different project within the same company. This is a last-measure resort and should be used sparingly as it will ruffle feathers and upset people(unless you have awesome boss who actually understands this stuff, I've only had 1 of those over 3 jobs so far, unfortunately it was the aforementioned boring job that got #1 wrong do I quit anyway). This will, however, get you used to programming again after long apathy periods(my worst stretch so far was my ~14 days of 0 output last year, but I've had longer periods of almost-0 output).

That's all the help I can give you, I guess. Each person has their own way of getting "into the zone" so this may or may not be useful to you, that's just been my personal experience on the subject.

PS: Shameless plug, if the first point(and most important one) is missing, i.e., there is no way that your current job will ever be interesting and if you're a good programmer and willing to work with that stack that involves iOS/nodeJS/python(we need people experienced in any of those 3 and we need them yesterday), let me know :)

Last edited by raja (November 7 2013)