alex.moskalyuk

Weekends became quite a rarity when we were launching Tech. They still appeared on the calendar with special color backgrounds applied to them, but they didn’t really matter. The crunch time is the period prone to stress and long working hours, but there are also ways to manage it.

1. Wake up as early as you can. I consistently have had better productivity sessions early in the morning than late at night. And I am not really a morning person. Getting up as early as possible achieves numerous positive effects, including driving to and from work in decent traffic, feeling woken up and energized at a peak time around 9-10 am, and getting a lot of stuff done before lunch. One of the hardest parts about getting up early is going to bed reasonably early, so that you still get a normal amount of sleep. The problem is kinda self-curing, as by forcing yourself to get up early, you more or less force yourself to go to bed earliler. When you just start off with the practice, you might feel like watching Leno, but after waking up early on a regular basis, the body self-corrects and almost requires hitting the sack earlier than usual.
2. Sleep whenever you need to sleep. Feeling tired is one of the signals by which the body communicates to the brain the need to take a break. Most of the stupid coding errors and check-ins due to simple typos can usually be discovered after the clock hits about 6 o’clock, and most of the activity at this point achieves very little productivity, or, what’s worse, becomes counter-productive. When you feel sleepy but still decide to continue coding, the likelihood of introducing an error or missing a small part of the spec grows significantly. If you stand up and go away from the keyboard, two hours of missed work will probably be compensated by half an hour of work next morning. Plus, you won’t have to fix the coding errors introduced during late night coding sessions.
3. Be reasonable with caffeine. The impact of caffeine on human body varies widely from person to person, but generally presence of caffeine increases blood circulation and blocks, or slows don, the metabolism or sugar. The short-term effect of feeling wired and energized is compensated by feeling dormant and weak after lunch or early in the evening. I try to switch from coffee to green tea, whenever I foresee a regular consumption of caffeine throughout the day. According to my doctor, avoiding caffeine entirely will have a better effect on the body in general. I don’t think I am at the point where I can completely go off caffeine, though.
4. Let your eyes rest. Generally that means walking away from the computer for 5 minutes or so every hour. Bathroom breaks, getting something to drink or just simple walk around to stretch the muscles usually gets the job done. Update: The “downstairs” that my boss is talking about in the comments is the “game room” at Yahoo!, which features such prominent items as foosball table. Foosball is a serious addiction for US white-collar men 25-34, and shouldn’t be joked about.