How do you know if you're obsessed with coding?

In the world we live in today everyone is trying harder than ever to reach their goals. As someone who writes blog posts about coding and the coding lifestyle in general I think I should take some time to note how easy it is to fall into the trap of becoming overly obsessed with doing your hobby. I have done this before and have learned to not let the constant grind of becoming a developer be the only thing in life.

THE GOOD NEWS

YOU DOING GREAT! YOU CAN DO IT !!

First off, your doing great! You are killing it with the amount of time you spend on your projects and solving leet code questions. No one should be able to tell you a thing about whether you making progress or not because only you can get a true sense of what it's like to grasp computer science terms and business logic.

Nothing big ever gets done without a tremendous amount of time put into the process. Not to mention the feeling of what it's like to do something from scratch without having any prior knowledge of the language or framework you are building with. To this day I always look back at my first website that I built to keep me motivated. It had fixed headers, overlapping CSS, and Comic Sans because I couldn't load fonts properly (ah the good times).

THE BAD NEWS

You are not "crushing it " the way you think you are.

SPEED AND PATIENCE
One of the things I'll never forget that I was learning growing up was patience. When you are in your early 20s or just simply starting like I was, it's really hard to be patient ( especially with these young crypto stock geniuses riding around in Ferrari's right). You have to remember that it's truly about the journey ahead and not the destination.

But I'm not just going to give you some old sayings and quotes that I could easily steal from chatGPT. Here is some real advice.

REMEMBER TO SCHEDULE TIME EFFECTIVELY

This isn't about how much time you spend coding, but how much time you spend away from coding instead. This includes getting your normal life chores done before you hop into a work session. I usually feel like I can focus more knowing that the boring tasks of my day have been taken care of and that I have a clear schedule of coding ahead of me.

Do you take breaks ?
No, seriously. Do you take breaks?
What I consider to be an actual break is something that doesn't use the same type of brain function. Sure, it is perfectly fine to do something creative or if you want to do something that is still a bit technical if that's what you're into. But I want to emphasize that taking a break means not thinking about code or being a web developer. When you're not coding you could even pretend that you are removing a persona that you have developed.

That way you can just be "Steve" rather than Steve [insert last name here],[insert job title here] on LinkedIn every waking moment. I get that being a developer is who you are, but technically you came into this world with the name that your parents gave you or at least the nickname that you gave yourself. It's okay to drop the title and not treat things as if you're a character in a medieval fantasy MMORPG.

THINGS YOU CAN DO ON BREAK
Try to do things that don't require a high amount of brain activity.

• Do The Dishes

This is an odd example but one of the reasons I dislike automatic dishwashers are because they rob some of the human element to living life. Doing chores shouldn't be easy. As developers, we don't have a "set it and forget it" option when we build our projects. So why are we enabling the same behavior in our everyday lives? Yes, there are things you should automate in your projects so you don't repeat yourself. I like knowing that I'm accomplishing a task by focusing on the water and the amount of pressure that I apply to the dishrag itself to remove the grease. Again it's not coding but it takes your mind off of typing on a keyboard and always checking for errors in the console. If anything it works as a great metaphor since everything we build takes time. You can't just enjoy the meal, you have to enjoy the boring parts of the process as well which means cleaning up the mess you made while building that amazing dish.

• Engage in media that doesn't require too much though.

I think it's okay to enjoy some trash TV once in a while unless you feel like it is genuinely making you dumber or lowering your IQ. Some shows have a way of doing that.

• Exercise your body

This goes without saying but a strong body will equivocate to a strong mind for doing coding. This isn't just for taking a break either. Technically you should be doing this throughout your lifetime no matter what job type you have. Overall keeping up with a good exercise routine can lead to some great eureka moments in your development process. I cannot speak for anyone who may have physical impairments that prevent them from doing this. But I'm sure that even then there is some form of physical concentration that can be utilized to help improve a person's mental clarity in their work and also how they feel about themselves when they look in the mirror.

(I Would pair this with eating well but I know it's very hard to do so in our day and age, plus this is not a healthy journal anyway)

• Write a book

This is a bit of a wild suggestion but I believe that doing another creative activity can pair well with your ability to create code. You don't have to write a story per se, but you should understand the practice of storytelling. I know most will say that typing up letters and words on a screen is the same thing as doing code, however, I think exploring a different creative outlet can have its benefits and for some may lead to feeling more refreshed when they come back to a coding project that they are working on. In my opinion, it's not about looking for ways to form paragraphs of text similar to lines of code. If you take the time to truly understand what goes into good storytelling you will often hear the terms 'show don't tell' or 'maid and butler dialogue '. This is how some stories can capture reader's imaginations by describing things in such a way that it spoonfeeds them information about what is happening in a scene without being too direct. Describing something by using various details without sounding too vague on paper.

How to describe someone's hair without saying their race or skin color is usually a good example of this.

Just like writing code and trying to find the best space and run-time complexity, there are ways to write stories using certain techniques to make sure the reader fully understands what they are imagining in their head as they read line for line. With this you'll use different creative juices and also think differently about how you perceived different media, thus giving you something different to think about rather than why your script won't run.

CONCLUSION

Everything that I write is strictly from my own experience and shouldn't be the only guidelines that you use to keep yourself grounded in your work career. I feel like this is all general information but information that just needs to be repeated every once in a while. It is widely accepted and necessary to take breaks from what you doing in your day-to-day goal setting. Otherwise, you'd be harming yourself in the long run by stunting your ability to learn properly, and may one day have regrets about setting out for this lifestyle that you have chosen.

WHAT INSPIRED THIS ARTICLE?

My partner had to remind me that sometimes there will be setbacks that might cause me to miss my routine specifically she said

"You have to know that everything will not always be perfect"

Of course, as an adult, I know this but sometimes there are certain areas of life that I try to maintain and stay in control of. This all led to me having a strict regime that led me to do a leet code every day even though I believe it truly helps you understand how to implement code.
As well as a need to have a good-looking git commit history regardless if the recruiter is checking it or not.As much as I would love to have bright lime green squares in every box it is perfectly okay to have a few commits and spend other days focusing on interpersonal skills and engaging with friends instead.

Thank you for reading and always remember to take breaks and spend some time with family friends and loved ones for they are not always around and may not be around once you achieve your goals.