My developer life

For this week’s non-tech blog, instead of trying to give you guys any advice, I think it might be better and more down to earth to let you know how my days look like as student and software developer. Hopefully you can utilise some of it.

As mentioned before, I am still a student, not a full-time developer. It would not be fair if I say this lifestyle is a typical “developer” one. So I would like to split my days into weekdays and weekends. My weekday is more like a college student, and my weekend is more like a developer.

My desk just before writing this blog :)

Weekdays

Schedule

• 8:00 Get up

• 8:30 Breakfast and reading

• 9:00 Gym

• 11:00 School(classes, meetings, etc.)

• 17:00 Badminton training

• 19:00 Go home and chill

Now allow me to talk about why I decide on this schedule.

First of all, I believe reading is still one of the best, if not the best, way to get knowledge. What’s why I always save 30min in the morning to read about all sorts of material. Technical, fictions, research papers, whatever. For me reading is a not only a way to learn, it’s also a way to practice staying in focus. Growing up I am a bit of a scatterbrain, always distracted by things. Sitting down and shutting off all external noises is important to my career, and could also be quite enjoyable sometimes.

Another thing you might notice is that I have a lot of physical work planned out each day, and this is not a coincidence. The work of developer is mostly sedentary, which in time is probably not so good for the body. Plus working out poses many benefits to us developers. If you go through your week with a single exercise, you might want to rethink about your schedule. Simply walking around the campus or work is better than nothing.

Last but not least, there’s almost no coding planned out, which would be a bit of shame for a developer, but please let me explain. For one, at school we are learning programming and other CS topics everyday, and I always try to squeeze an hour at night to code, sometimes more if there’s a pressing deadline. For two, and this may make a few of you angry, I think the work of a developer is a lonely one. Not many human interactions, just you typing in front of a computer. So during the week, I try to do as little coding as possible, in exchange to talking to friends, families. Personally I consider this a good trade, one has to be a human before a developer.

Weekends

Schedule

• 9:00 Get up & breakfast

• 10:00 Work

• 12:00 Lunch break

• 14:00 More work

• 17:00 Dinner & rest

• 19:00 More work

• 21:00 Home workout

• 22:00 Shower and chill

The premise is that I have no other plans for the weekend except for coding. This schedule looks more like a 9~5 workday for a typical developer, and allow me to elaborate.

First of all, this schedule is very work intensive under first glance, but there should be an asterisk for it. My work doesn’t only include coding, it can also be doing side projects, setting upcoming deadline and planning out work, and even writing blogs like this one. But my intention is to get a lot of coding done over weekends, because I am usually free from other businesses.

Another little fun thing to point out, and this is not really related to you, my weekend lunches and dinners are usually home-made. I quite enjoy cooking, and when there’s more time I can spend on it, I try to make some different dishes compared to weekdays. However, from time to time I still order food, especially when I am under a tight deadline.

Even in weekends I would try to get some workout done. It is usually just following home workouts on YouTube, and I will link my playlist here. Please note I only pick one or two them to do at a time, not the whole list.

Just to re-illustrate, this is not every Saturday and Sunday for me. Only when I have no other plans.

Conclusion

So that’s my days as a student/developer. Let me know you like it or hate it, if you have anything in common to mine, or anything you want to say. And I will see you guys next week.

Nick