arithma I've been thinking through the stages that I pass through in my life and it seems these programmers do need a dedicated shrink to deal with all the issues that arise! - Frustration - Lack of Motive - Depression - False Enthusiasm - Lack of Focus What else is there? What do you struggle with yourself, how do you deal with it?
rolf I struggle with being constant, consistent, productive, relaxed, happy and having healthy habits. Basically I just want to do too much and end up doing nothing.
mrmat Nice to know that i am not the only one who experiences such things. It just freakin randomly hits me every now and then. Today for example i experienced Depression, Lack of Focus, and Frustration. And answering your question on how i deal with it, i simply don't/can't. So i am sure a shrink dedicated to programmers would be helpful. Who's up for it? :)
Ayman Yeah I experience frustration and deep fear when working on something really critical and I am running out of time. I the final days while I was working on my mobile project and I really felt time is running away and problems starting popping out one after another I really felt pain inside me, pain in my heart. But thank God everything went good and I fixed everything. Another bad thing is some laziness and lack of concentration/focus which really kills my productivity. To deal with concentration/focus problems usually I try to start avoiding the "means of mass distraction", the social sites. Third problem, is inability to concentrate on a single project at a time, I am always working on multiple ones since every time I reach almost the end or middle of one a new idea pops out and I want to do it, and the chain goes on...
rolf samer wroteDoes anyone else start experiencing ADD and multitasks aimlessly? I do. I've been told that I need to be in an office to work well. I'll try that next week, hopefully.
arithma I did work before in an office, and I used to stay at home (in spite of some others' discouragement) whenever I needed to concentrate on work. What I've been working at personally is trying to figure out the internal issues rather than work on the environment (though it definitely could have an effect for sure). I guess plugging out (internet) could help a lot (one of the external factors). It all depends on what you're trying to do. Currently my projects are spun out of my head as I am not doing any major project for anyone. I get really tensed up about a few issues like: - Getting stuck in presentation details when the idea is really simple model wise. - Getting stuck translating a model into code when the various pieces of code are so god damn similar but yet each have their own nuisance as to make it extremely (read uneconomic) to refactor. I work in an obsessive mode, so pondering about two projects never seems to happen with me. However, it is extremely hard (almost impossible) to take on multiple projects at the same time. I have been really pondering about the use of methamphetamines just for the above reasons, to see if it can make a difference or not. (It's not because I want more performance, but because I require higher self satisfaction... One of the best mathematicians did use meth. (Paul Erdos)). I am not going to ask if anyone knows where to get it though :P What have you tried? What happens? Another whole dimension to this is the group versus sole wolf style of development and how it affects performance. A point I'd like to elaborate would be the false enthusiasm which could put you into some weird places with people. I'd get so excited about an idea and get to take in and make promises about it to some good people that I randomly bump into in the internettosphere. It happens slowly that interest wanes out gradually or sometimes instantly after an initial punch through. It's awkward when you become friends with those people but you didn't go through what you've promised. [Didn't know it will end up with such a mouthful, boy can I blabber].
mir All of the above happen - usually - what i do is have 2 different type of tasks : - core features - easy to-do When in non-concentration mode - i just force myself to finish easy to do items that don't need really lot of thinking - then i force myself to take a break for specific period of time , eventually , i get "interested" in working on the project again If this fails - i make sure to review my to-pay list and expense sheet - this surely gets me back in my work mood ( caffeine + fear = motivation ) Other "issues" is that you become emotionally detached or too cold when problems happen. I get used to things being awry, fucked up , messed up - so after some time, I stop having emotional reaction when things are bad, it is like i shrug and bleh akid there is also that u become ktir intro vert and forget about life outside cyberspace and all this
