Anyway, my last blog was about only working when I felt like it.  Instead of doing the standard 9-5 work hours, I only went to work when I was in the mood and left and did something else when I wasn’t.

How did it go?  I’d say it was a success.  Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten rid of my old mentality of having to work X hours per day.  I take frequent nap breaks in the sun.  I go rock climbing in the middle of the day.  I go home to chill.  I don’t even think of how many hours I work per day anymore.  There’s no “work time” idea just “Ok, I feel like working, let’s go”.

How is my productivity affected?  I don’t have any hard statistics proving that my productivity stayed the same or not but I can tell you that those fewer hours of work have felt way more productive than I’ve been before.  In the long scheme of things I think motivation is the bottleneck to work productivity.  So as long as I only work when I’m motivated productivity will follow naturally.

It feels so empowering to be able to work like this.  Like I actually own my life.  The best feeling is leaving work early with no regrets and not feeling crap from overworking the whole day.

On to the next experiment…

The good ole days...

Somewhere along the way life became more complicated.  At some point I started planning and preparing for my future.  Maximizing my productivity became a priority.  Work, sports, exercise, and extracurriculars became compartmentalized into schedules designed to maximize my overall output.  Is this how we were meant to live?  I can’t imagine so because it feels so wrong.

My life now...

I want to break this paradigm and go back to what I knew was right as a kid: being free and doing what I wanted.  So my next crazy idea is: I’m only going to work when I feel like it.  Say what?  Yes, you heard correct.  From now on I plan on only working when I actually want to, and when I don’t I won’t.  It’s such a simple and natural idea!

The basic idea is if I don’t feel like working there must be a reason.  I could be lacking sleep, been working too long, or perhaps I just don’t enjoy what I’m doing.  The point is my mind/body is telling me something is wrong.

But now, instead of ignoring these signals and trying to battle my way through, I should  do something about it!  Take a nap, take a break, or worse comes to worse maybe a job change is needed.  Fix myself before I fix my code.  The human instinct is an amazing thing and tells us so much about what we need if only we listened.

Listening to my body...

Ok, sounds great, but we live in a modern world with real deadlines.  Just because I’m having a bad day doesn’t mean I can just miss deadlines.  True, but here’s the point.  If I know I need to get something done and I refuse to work if I don’t feel like it then I better as hell make sure that I do feel like working when the time comes around.

All I’m doing is elevating the priority of my well-being over my productivity.  For once, I want to think of myself before the creation of some generic computerized product.  Who could’ve thought of such a crazy idea?!

Having said all this, yes, I do believe that persevering and pushing myself to finish a goal is sometimes necessary and very rewarding.  But I can’t imagine going through this everyday is healthy and in the end I think it is just unfair to myself.  Is my productivity really worth my vitality and happiness?  I think not.

So from now on I’ll be working only when I feel like it.  I’ll keep a journal keeping track of my activities.  Hopefully I’ll be as productive in the end while breaking the monotony of the 8 hour workday.  Let’s see how this goes

Day 1: 5 hours, 13 minutes of screen time

Day 2: 4 hours, 17 minutes of screen time

Day 3: 2 hours, 33 minutes of screen time

So in honesty I haven’t had to do too much coding recently which is why my screen time is fairly low.  I’ve mostly been running experiments, writing wikis, and been involved in email discussions.

Still, though I think I was able to nicely reduce my screen time from what I normally would have done.  Here are some things I found:

1. I had to read and understand code from a single file.  Instead of reading on computer though I printed it out and read the code outside in the sun.  It was nice but some problems were the lack of search functionality and also the fact that I was wasting paper.  Maybe both can be mitigated by using a kindle?
2. When compiling instead of going to some random blog or facebook I played the piano I brought to my office.
3. Organizing and thinking on pen and paper instead of the computer feels so much more natural.
4. It is still very easy for me to get stuck in the always stay on the computer mode.  Facebook and chat are still huge distractions for me personally.

Overall, not a bad start I think with this minimizing screen time idea.  I definitely think I can still improve my screen time per day.  But it really felt that the less screen time I have the way better in touch with reality I am.

The reality disconnection I feel from the programming lifestyle is one of the main problems I talked about in my last post and I suspect that the primary reason for this is my overuse of computers. I stare into this screen all day which presents itself as an entire world. I can express my thoughts through a blog, play games with friends, and manipulate this world and create new things via programming. But in the end, it’s all virtual and not real. It’s a screen full of pixels emitting light waves.

Or maybe...

Now, don’t get me wrong, computers are a wonderful tool allowing one to be exponentially way more efficient at certain tasks.  But that’s all they should be: a tool to help get a job done, not the defining indicator of a person’s lifestyle.

So my first attempt at an experiment is to minimize to the bare minimum my use of the computer.  What is the base minimum?  In reality, I think I only need the computer for email (as NVIDIA is a company based on email) and then also obviously, coding and debugging.  Besides that, I think I can live on without the use of the computer or at least I will try.

So here’s my plan:

1. Avoid thinking in front of a computer.  There is no reason for me to be staring at a screen when I am thinking or in the creative process.  In actuality, it only serves as a distraction.  Any drafts/prototypes/organization/planning can be done using pen/paper.  Any paper or doc that needs to be read can be printed or read from a kindle (more friendly to environment).  Overall, just stay away from computer until it is totally necessary!  The only big exception to this I can see is debugging (but I never make bugs so nbd ).
   

   To stare at a screen all day, or not to stare at a screen all day...

2. Avoid waiting in front of a computer.  This refers to times when I’m compiling, downloading, waiting for an email, or on a break.  Again, there is no reason to be in front of a computer.  For some reason, as a friend mentioned to me, it does feel like we are more productive if we sit in front of a computer than not even if we are in fact not doing any work.  But I’m sure if anything it’s counterproductive!  So instead, when there’s a need to wait I’ll get off my ass and bother my coworkers or go outside and do some Movnat.
   

   Sword fighting on chairs is also a creative alternative...

By doing these things I’m hoping that I can drastically reduce my computer one on one face time and disconnect from the computer virtual world and be more connected with reality in the end.

To measure my non-idle time I wrote a simple C program which will run on a linux machine with X server.  I needed libxss-dev to compile it.  Here is the source for those interested: nonidletimer.c

Man, I’m up to 87 minutes already and I just started my day…

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?

A sad sight yes, but this perfectly describes the standard lifestyle of the millions of programmers in the world, including that of myself.

You programmers know what I’m describing here.  When we program we get sucked into this virtual, artificial world of bits and bytes which our whole mind occupies.  The real world vanishes and all that matters is how best we can manipulate this virtual world of ours.  We become disconnected to everything else.

"Wired in."

I don’t think it’s far fetched to assert that humans were not designed to live or work like this!  We exist as the product of billions of years of evolution where our ancestors competed against other species to come out on top in the end and successfully pass on their superior genes from offspring to offspring.  You can’t tell me that the resulting superior genes you and I have inherited was meant to be expressed sitting in a cubicle from 9 to 5!

I feel the effects of this lifestyle everyday as  I leave work.  It feels unhealthy, disheartening and is sucking the life out of my soul.  I’m tired of coming from the weekend into the dreary space of my office cubicle.  I’m tired of becoming totally disconnected from nature and reality.  I’m tired of the endless cycle of burnouts and recuperation.  I need change!

However, I have a problem.  I don’t want to leave my job.  I actually love my job, the engineering part, the part where I can use my creativity and intellect to create things for the enjoyment and benefit for others.  I know this is true for the majority of engineers.  We love to build and create things for the world.  And this I believe is profoundly human.

So I love the work but not the lifestyle.  I’ve been stuck with this thought for a while until this crazy idea came up: Is it possible to totally change the programmer lifestyle while still being an effective programmer?

Technology has advanced and yet we're still stuck working the same way...

So I want to try something different and unconventional.  I want to explore the possibilities of what a programmer’s lifestyle can be.  Does it have to be relegated to working in front of a monitor in a cubicle 8 hours a day?  Do we as programmers have to live with the fact that we will be under continual chronic stress for most of our lives?  Or is it possible to break these boundaries and change how we work and think while still being fully productive as an engineer?

These are questions that I want to explore with some N=1 experimentation.

I’ve been inspired by the primal philosophy that we are happiest and healthiest when we live closer to our primal/genetic nature.  I’ve been exploring this idea with diet (Paleo diet), exercise (MovNat), and general lifestyle (Primal Blueprint) and have found incredible discoveries about myself.  I’d like to now see how this philosophy can be applied to one of man’s more modern and least primal of creations: the programmer.

This looks more fun.

I’ll be documenting my efforts in this blog and hopefully something good comes of it.  Please share any suggestions or comments (good or bad).  Let’s see how this goes.  :)