On Instagram and Twitter, I recently created polls where I asked how many of you guys meditate, and only about 30% voted positively. This number should be much higher, considering how many benefits mindfulness meditation provides, especially for people who use their brains as much as programmers. If done regularly, meditation can drastically reduce stress, frustration … Read more
I am not a big fan of learning programming through books, at least not the high-level stuff that we use in our day to day life. I think it’s a good idea to start with a book on the fundamentals if you’re just starting out, because the basic concepts don’t change very much, but after … Read more
When you first start to learn programming and spend some time in the various communities, it can feel as if you just landed on an alien planet and now try to adapt to this foreign race by learning their complicated languages, adopting their way of thinking and understanding the correct manners. Everyone is talking in … Read more
Does that sound familiar? You know you should be doing something important, something that benefits your life or helps you avoid a lot of trouble in the future. Maybe this task is difficult, but you know you could get it done if you would just focus on it for a while. But instead you spend … Read more
Motivation is a tricky topic. There were some things in my life for which I had strong burning desire in the beginning, but after a couple of weeks my motivation completely plummeted and often I even ended up hating this particular task, hobby or project. This can easily happen when you invest a lot of time … Read more
A lot of my viewers are programming beginners, and I still consider myself a beginner as well. But I have already learned some things along my way, made some mistakes and observed other developers. In this blog post I want to talk about 5 tips for starting programmers that I figured out on my own … Read more
I’m kind of a productivity nerd. I really love reading articles, books and blog posts about tips and techniques that help me get more done, beat procrastination and improve efficiency and motivation. And while there are lots of different approaches and not everything works for everyone, one common theme is always present: The importance of … Read more
Learning to code is basically just going from one problem to another. Some of these problems are solved easily, but there are also situations where you just feel lost and frustrated. In these moments you wish someone else would write your code for you, implement the thing you don’t understand and then hand over the … Read more
As I already explained in my Incremental Progress over Intense Sprints blog post, I think it is much better to make steady, incremental progress rather than going super hard for short periods of time and eventually burn out. If you can combine both, perfect, but don’t confuse the initial boost of motivation that you always … Read more
As a fan of MMORPGs, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of approaching life like a game/RPG for years now. Just think about how much effort we voluntarily put into a game to make progress. I mean it’s literally hard work for hours on end over months. And not only that we don’t get any … Read more