Health – That Girl Coder

1. Learn a technical concept everyday

This might look impossible when you are constantly juggling multiple things at work. But spend 10 to 20 minutes everyday learning or reading about a new technical concept. To avoid the fatigue of trying to find a topic everyday, you can make a list of 20 to 30 topics beforehand and then go through each item over the course of time.

2. Stand up during meetings

Ideally as a Software Engineer your day should not be filled with meetings. So whenever you get into a meeting, try to take it while standing. If you don’t have your video turned on, feel free to stretch and move around a little during the meeting. Standing desks or standing desk converters that you can place on top of your current ones are a great investment especially at a job that’s done from a desk for 7+ hours everyday.

3. Keep emailing and Slacking at bay

Many Engineers use their precious morning energy and mental clarity to check emails – an activity that mostly does not involve any thinking or creative problem solving except for maybe a couple of important emails everyday. So avoid opening your email first thing in the morning or keeping that tab open all the time. Instead check emails twice a day – maybe before lunch and once before signing off for the day.

Similarly avoid checking Slack/ Team or other messenger notifications all day reactively. You can go one step ahead and keep notifications muted and people can override it in case they really have to get their message across to you. Personally I have kept mine muted for a while now and urgent messages have been pretty rare.

4. Ask at least one question

Being able to ask relevant follow up questions can indicate how much of the content you did grasp from someone’s presentation. Try to think of at least one relevant question to ask during any technical presentation that you attend – be it within or outside the team. When you are listening to a presentation, try to be fully present. Don’t chat or check emails at the same time since our mind has to constantly context switch between different activities.

5. Keep mobile devices far away from your work station

A lot of Engineers keep their phones right by their keyboards and keep checking it every gap they get. We can even lose track of time sometimes in checking phones instead of giving ourselves uninterrupted chunks of time to focus on work. Making sure to focus on one thing at a time can help avoid fatigue and get things done faster. This way you have all the time you need at the end of the day to spend on your phones (although you probably shouldn’t :p)

6. Hydrate and rest your eyes

Software Engineers are required to stare into screens all day which can really cause a lot of damage and fatigue to our eyes. Use a chrome extension that reminds you to take a break from the screen every 20 – 30 mins. During this time you might as well go get some water and walk around!

There are also Pomodoro chrome extensions that nudge you to take a break after completion of focus time intervals.

7. Teach or document what you know

Aim to add slight improvements to existing documentation at least every week or once in two weeks. This will help your team keep documentation up to date.

If you have been working on something for 3+ months, try to teach about it to someone or give a presentation on that topic to your team or even outside your team. There’s nothing that solidifies your knowledge more than trying to teach it to someone.

Hope these tips help you build a better work life as a Software Engineer!

Remind yourself about why you do what you do

If you are feeling a lack of motivation and purpose at work, it’s important to take a step back and understand why you are doing this in the first place. Is it because you love coding, solving problems, managing projects, or working alongside talented people and learning from them? Or maybe you took it up to support yourself or your family financially.

Once you know why you are at this job, try and find out what parts of it are causing the lack of motivation. Perhaps you are stuck at a boring job, or a project that you don’t enjoy or maybe you are working overtime losing track of hours in front of the computer. Have conversations with your manager on what kind of work you would like to do once you have completed the current project and ask if there are certain parts of it that you can delegate to make space for work that interests you. You might be tempted to slog off without communicating but remember that a lack of motivation can kill productivity and the quality of work that you produce which is a lose-lose situation for your career and the company that you work for. If you tried that and you still feel miserable, see if it’s time to look for opportunities outside your company.

Take care of physical and mental health

Spend a few minutes 3 to 5 days a week to get a quick exercise session in the morning or after work. Establishing a morning/evening routine can help kick start the day in a right way and also make sure that you log off on time after a day’s work. Stretching for few minutes every hour is very helpful to offload the stress from the body from sitting and working in front of a laptop all day. The marinara chrome extension is a super useful tool to schedule focus time with short and long breaks throughout the day.

Have you been waking up and feeling too tired or fatigued to work, more often than before? The pandemic is an enormously difficult time for people around the world. So you are not to be blamed for not feeling up to it. Mental health is as important or in fact more important than physical health. So don’t skimp on taking a couple of sick days off to catch your breath.

If your problems are chronic or are really impacting work, look into ways in which you can get help. You can reach out to your support system or consider therapy to help you navigate the situation. Many companies have been offering various sessions for boosting morale and supporting employees through these difficult times. Try attending them once in a while. Here’s a quick summary of the different ways to care for our health.

Exercise for 30 minutes everyday
Do mindful meditation for 5 to 10 minutes
Stretch every hour or two
Eat food that nourishes your brain and body
Take time to address mental health issues
Spend time outside of work on hobbies
Take breaks when you are fatigued
Reach out to your social circle
Invest in building deeper connections at work

Verbalize the stress

We tend to go through a lot of stress assuming that our colleagues don’t have these problems since they all seem fine externally. It’s mutually helpful to check on your team mates and connect with others around the company who are also dealing with the stressors of the pandemic. This can be a great way for employees to share their stories and exchange helpful tips to move forward through all this. Verbalize your stress by talking about it to others, in coffee chats, or with a licensed therapist. You can also try writing them down, journaling etc which can offload the stress and give you some time to think through it and address them.

Take a vacation

Many of us might save all the vacation leave not wanting to waste them unless we are on an Instagram worthy vacation. On the contrary taking a shorter/ longer break every few months from work is so important to cope with work life let alone with a pandemic thrown into the mix!

Not taking breaks leads to burnout which can take a huge toll on our health and also impact the quality of work seriously. This becomes a vicious cycle as Engineers tend to lose motivation and purpose when we are not able to produce high quality work.

Find meaning outside of work

For many people, work is a huge part of their identity and this makes them ignore other parts of their lives which can have a significant impact on their well-being. Take time everyday to actively strengthen the aspects of your life beyond work. This could be spending time with your family, friends or neighbors, taking time out for your hobbies and interests, pursuing a side hustle that you are passionate about etc.

Another mistake that a lot of Engineers do is to treat work as their major hobby and don’t take time for anything else in life. This results in overworking beyond work hours which can eventually lead to burnout and a lack of focussed work because increased work hours do not lead to an increase in productivity. In fact, it lowers it significantly. People who take time out to do other things have improved creativity in a problem solving environment.

Have short term goals

With no definite end in sight, the pandemic can seem like a never ending drag. So focus on short term goals at work to check off every quarter or month. Work with your manager and write these goals down in a shared document so that you have something to work towards in a shorter span of time. Make sure that these goals are reasonable and attainable with a few stretch goals to try and challenge yourself in case the others have been accomplished.

Hope these tips are helpful to you. Above all, be kind to yourself and understand that the world is going through an intense pandemic and we were not prepared to go through the motions of life without being affected by it. Stay safe!

Category: Health

7 Small Habits for Software Engineers