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The Lifestyle Problem(s)

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Josh

First of all, thanks for all the positive feedback I’ve gotten so far for this little project of mine! I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one dealing with similar experiences. It definitely motivates me to continue with this project. :)

I’ve been thinking about this programmer lifestyle project the past few days and I came up with a problem specification (I’m an engineer after all!) to help organize my thoughts on the subject.  They are in no specific order: reality disconnection, nature disconnection, immobility, and monotony.

Reality disconnection

Programming very often brings a programmer to a state which the popular movie Social Network liked to refer to as being “wired in”.  It is that state of mind where one’s mind is so preoccupied that one becomes disconnected with everything else happening.  I want to avoid this and live in the here and now, not stuck in a virtual world of moving bits and bytes.

The programmer's world...

Nature disconnection

I believe the farther in proximity one is from nature the less healthy/happy one is. That makes me in my cubicle with no window in sight one unhappy camper.  On the occasion I do go outside during work, I feel the sun and the grass (the forbidden sidewalk grass *gasp*) and I automatically feel so much better.  I need more nature!

Nature on your desktop! Good enough?

Immobility

We humans were designed to move, not sit still.  But us programmers are given nice looking chairs and a desk to sit in front of all day.  It doesn’t help when the scientific discipline of ergonomics focuses on immobile, awkward positions.  I want to move and get up more than their ridiculous recommended once per hour.  It’s sad when our incredibly complex and beautiful human movement skills are relegated to bathroom breaks.

She looks mighty comfortable.

Monotony

There is so little difference in my day to day life in the workplace that it is mind-numbing. It’s the same cubicle, same desk, same monitor, same schedule, every day. I feel imprisoned in this routine and I want so badly to just break free from it.

The same view I see five days a week...

So those are the main problems I could think of regarding the programmer lifestyle (Did I miss anything?).  It’s not based on any kind of scientific rigor of any sort but is based solely on what I feel by instinct, that thing which nature has so kindly given us to guide and motivate us to a healthy and happy life.

So any new thing I try will have the goal of minimizing one or more of these four problems as much as possible without compromising my effectiveness as a programmer.  Now that the problem specification has been laid out the rest should be easy right?

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  • Will Hui

    I think this is a pretty good roadmap to start with; I can certainly identify with all aspects described. 
    Breaking up the day with short walks outside tackles all problems at once, but it could be interesting to see how to tackle each issue separately (as they are not necessarily intertangled).

    I expect you also will have to grapple with a tension between work productivity and the ideal lifestyle. I don’t think they are always incompatible, but to me it seems there are sometimes trade-offs to be made. This is at least clear with respect to “reality disconnection.” In the realm of psychology, this state of mind is called flow. People often do their best work while in flow, and I think a session of heightened concentration is not always a bad thing.

    • http://www.facebook.com/talekhinezh Joshua Primero

      Yes, I agree a periodic walk once in a while can do a whole lot of good and it does deal with all the issues mentioned.  However you then still have to deal with the fact that for the  rest of the day you will be subject to the issues again.  I want to avoid this kind of work/relax cycle as I don’t believe it solves the underlying problem that the current way we work overall is unhealthy.

      And agreed regarding the concentration part.  Heightened concentration is indeed important in order to finish any difficult task.  I do believe however that subjecting one’s self to this state for the majority of a day or week is unhealthy and could also be counterproductive.

  • K&R

    feel free to get your life on, but you’ll suck at programming. refer to the famous picture of ken and den writing unix, that’s how it’s always been and always will be

    • http://www.facebook.com/talekhinezh Joshua Primero

      watch me.

    • Kerry

       I worked at BL Murray Hill for a year in 1984-5 and saw Dennis all the time–not only in the hallway and at terminals, but also in the woods where folks walked at lunch and at the bocce court (also outside).  Other luminaries also.  Sometimes they would tell stories.

      The culture there/then was not like here/now.  Now we sit all day, wired in, pounding it out.  They were researchers, inventors.  Not wage slaves.  They wrote code when they decided to–not every day.  They were interested in ideas, not  in self-stimulation of switching between ‘ed’ and facebook.

  • http://www.facebook.com/saiko.chriskun Chris Bolton

    join a better company? :P

    • http://www.facebook.com/talekhinezh Joshua Primero

      Heh, like I mentioned in my previous post I love the work I do at NVIDIA.  I can’t think of a cooler place to work on the most cutting edge technology.

      Also, it’s not about the company.  Any software company you go to I’m sure you’ll find the same kind of programmer lifestyle.  So ok, maybe Google or Facebook have more perks and free food but in the end the way a programmer works and lives is up to himself.

      I think the problem is that we’ve just been so conditioned to work a certain way that this lifestyle for a programmer is accepted.  I personally can’t accept it and so I’m just trying to explore what alternatives are possible.