This is kind of a long story, but bear with me, it's relevant.
I went to a book signing by Brandon Sanderson. Not a huge fan of him as a person, but he's a fantastic writer and an incredibly smart man. He started off the signing with a little story about creativity. When Brandon was in college, he worked 3rd shift at a hotel. He'd go to school in the mornings, sleep in the afternoons, and work all night. He tried to roll his own degree, but they made him stick to the Creative Writing plan. Instead, he decided to mix up his electives -- take as many subjects as he possibly could. A writer needs to know about history, science, philosophy, technology, and so on. You can't just spend all day in English classes and expect to be a well-rounded writer!
So he took as many classes as he could. He'd go to class in the morning, sleep in the afternoon, and then get to work around midnight. In between checking in guests at the hotel, he'd work on his homework, and once his homework was done, he'd write for hours. He wrote his first six or seven novels while working at the hotel (the last one was actually picked up by a publisher or publication).
He said that he had no problem with this schedule... except for his programming class. He was taking a class that used Pascal, and he'd get to work, do his Pascal homework, and then be completely unable to write. He took dozens of classes at university, but the only one that left him completely creatively drained was programming.
In other words, programming took just as much energy out of him as writing did -- it exercises the same brain muscles, so to speak.
I don't really have much of a point to this, other than to say that a rather well-known fantasy author commiserates. Programming is hard. It's draining. It's being non-stop creative in solving problems.
My personal philosophy is this: everything can wait until tomorrow. When the clock hits 5 o'clock, start wrapping up. Find a stopping place, and pick it up tomorrow. Barring servers crashing, the work will still be there tomorrow. I don't check my email, I don't open my laptop, I don't do anything work-related once I get home. Home is me time. Nine-to-five is company time.
I guess there are two things here: programming is hard work, and draw a line between your personal and work life.
I have a different theory: programming shuts down half your brain, giving all the juice to the other half.
When I stop for lunch, the world is in 2D for a while. Then after a few minutes it springs into 3D. I have to guess, that half my brain has been looking through its one eye mostly, coding with all its might. The other half is idling away, not even processing much visually.
I know, the right-brain left-brain thing is not universal. But for me, that's how it works.
I went to a book signing by Brandon Sanderson. Not a huge fan of him as a person, but he's a fantastic writer and an incredibly smart man. He started off the signing with a little story about creativity. When Brandon was in college, he worked 3rd shift at a hotel. He'd go to school in the mornings, sleep in the afternoons, and work all night. He tried to roll his own degree, but they made him stick to the Creative Writing plan. Instead, he decided to mix up his electives -- take as many subjects as he possibly could. A writer needs to know about history, science, philosophy, technology, and so on. You can't just spend all day in English classes and expect to be a well-rounded writer!
So he took as many classes as he could. He'd go to class in the morning, sleep in the afternoon, and then get to work around midnight. In between checking in guests at the hotel, he'd work on his homework, and once his homework was done, he'd write for hours. He wrote his first six or seven novels while working at the hotel (the last one was actually picked up by a publisher or publication).
He said that he had no problem with this schedule... except for his programming class. He was taking a class that used Pascal, and he'd get to work, do his Pascal homework, and then be completely unable to write. He took dozens of classes at university, but the only one that left him completely creatively drained was programming.
In other words, programming took just as much energy out of him as writing did -- it exercises the same brain muscles, so to speak.
I don't really have much of a point to this, other than to say that a rather well-known fantasy author commiserates. Programming is hard. It's draining. It's being non-stop creative in solving problems.
My personal philosophy is this: everything can wait until tomorrow. When the clock hits 5 o'clock, start wrapping up. Find a stopping place, and pick it up tomorrow. Barring servers crashing, the work will still be there tomorrow. I don't check my email, I don't open my laptop, I don't do anything work-related once I get home. Home is me time. Nine-to-five is company time.
I guess there are two things here: programming is hard work, and draw a line between your personal and work life.