Jan 15 2024
When I was in first year of my uni, I was totally into coding, I coded every single day without doing anything extra. I just coded different things, learned different things, also shared those things with my friends and on X (previously twitter).
But I was getting burnt out too quickly, like every other month I felt that i needed break, and i took one week of breat where i wasn’t doing anything other than watching movies, or going out with friends.Then I felt refreshed for sometime and loop went on.
One time, I got rejected by my crush, before that I was solely focusing on her and coding, so my focus shifted from her and started reading self-help books as coping mechanism.
My first book was Atomic Habits, and It changed my life, not like I started following what that book told, but It made me interested in reading books in general, after self help books, I started reading philosphical books and journey went on.
I was coding at that time too, but my schedule had other time where I was reading, like while travelling or in the break between lectures. Before I was only thinking about solving problems and talking about coding to my friends, as if it was my whole personality. But then yeah, reading came into the life and it kind of fixed my thinking ability and I felt burnt out less often.
Then I started playing ukulele, I don’t play it often, but twice or thrice I practice it, and It’s fun, Whenever I am unable to solve some bug I just play uke for some time and it shifts my mind from the program, and after some time, solution automatically comes to the mind, I heard about this kind of focus switching from a youtube video, most probably Ali Abdaal said about this in his videos. It basically helps with creative thoughts.
After that I started working out regularly, I was doing it before too, but not regularly, I was doing it like 2-3 times a week, but now I do it 5-6 times a week, and I feel more energetic and focused. I do not even need to sit for hours in front of laptop, I am now able to do my work in less time, and also able to focus on other things too.
Hobbies help you not get burnt out easily, makes you a better person, and also helps you with your career. I am not saying that you should not code, but you should not code all the time, you should have other hobbies too, which will help you in long run.