Honest Question: What do you do when you lose motivation to code?
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
The only time I code lately is when someone makes a request, and I always aim to please if reasonably possible. Other than that, they made me the manager and I can tell someone else to do it.
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
Talk to your boss and ask for a junior dev that you can mentor in this job. It will take longer but will provide you with some higher purpose as well as help you realize how much you've learned and have to offer. If motivation comes from Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose (per Daniel Pink) then you appear to have the Autonomy but are lacking the Mastery (this is not a challenge for you), and Purpose (the goal doesn't resonate for you). Given that you've posted here, you're not a reclusive troglodyte (not that there's anything wrong with that) and you might enjoy bringing someone up to speed on something they couldn't do on their own.
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
* Sit at your gosh-darned desk and grind it out. You're a big boy. They don't pay you to play. * Code something else. It's not like there is only one task ahead of you in a big project. * Do some non-coding project task. It's not like a project is 100% coding. * Read about coding, listen to videos about coding, anything that you can convince yourself will improve your usefulness. * Get lunch, take a walk, but always set a time limit for your distraction. * Rage-quit your software job, and open a gluten-free bakery.
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
I take a break, or take on less demanding tasks. Or switch to something unrelated, but then again I have more tasks at my work, than just coding, so I have a lot of freedom of choice. But sometimes I just wait for my muse to come to me.
-
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
If you don't want to support it, you can always open source it and offer it for free. Let the community support it.
I find it interesting you'd suggest this and word it this way. This is no criticism...but hear me out. When "open source" started making waves, I viewed is as kind of a "bad" thing - someone writes something, releases it to the world, and if there's problems, the wonderful thing is that you can go fix it yourself. At least that's how it had been (poorly) presented to me, and my stance against open source had often been, there's no accountability. Who in his right mind would want to commit himself to using a library when there's no-one to shout at when it's broken? Fix it myself? As a developer, I need to spend my own time writing my own software, not fixing other people's bugs. I've come a long way, but (for example) when I look at the amount of NuGet packages out there, and how often things need to be updated...it sometimes makes me wonder if this approach is really the best.
Yeah, that's a fair point. For the enterprise, I'll never use a package/software without a larger community support for that very reason. In this instance though, the alternative would be for the project to be abandoned it would seem. At least if it's open sources, perhaps someone else can take it and run with it. Never a one perfect solution to anything in tech though.
Jeremy Falcon
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
Prahlad Yeri wrote:
that there are times when you feel low motivation....when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working
Either phrased oddly or those, at least for me, are not the same. If there is a point in the day where I stop then it is probably because I am tired. So time to call it a day. If there is a "project" that I don't want to work then it lacks requirements, it lacks a schedule, the schedule is wildly over optimistic or a combination of all of those. And one or more people did not listen when I pointed out those problems.
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
1. Switch languages (The swearing is a bit offensive but Learn a Haskell for Great Good is entertaining and Haskell is a great language.) 2. Write video games or Physics simulations instead of boring business code 3. Create art with your code 4. Create virtual instruments for Cubase/Garage Band/Fruity Loops or create Blender/KDENLive Plugins 5. Find a problem you are passionate about or that really annoys you and fix it with code. 6. Write *short* YouTube posts or blogs about a very specific problem that you can explain better than anyone else. Last but not least - don't touch no-code/low-code with a ten foot pole. Unless you see an obvious application where no-code/low-code is the easy way out, stay away from that stuff because I believe low-code/no-code drains most passionate developers... Blender geometry nodes are an exception to this. Blender geometry nodes seem to use a no-code/low-code "IDE" that actually makes sense and "gets you results". NOTE: Code Project will probably flag this post of mine as SPAM. I don't know why but the Code Project algorithm is really bad about flagging me for unknown reasons. Is it a political thing?
-
1. Switch languages (The swearing is a bit offensive but Learn a Haskell for Great Good is entertaining and Haskell is a great language.) 2. Write video games or Physics simulations instead of boring business code 3. Create art with your code 4. Create virtual instruments for Cubase/Garage Band/Fruity Loops or create Blender/KDENLive Plugins 5. Find a problem you are passionate about or that really annoys you and fix it with code. 6. Write *short* YouTube posts or blogs about a very specific problem that you can explain better than anyone else. Last but not least - don't touch no-code/low-code with a ten foot pole. Unless you see an obvious application where no-code/low-code is the easy way out, stay away from that stuff because I believe low-code/no-code drains most passionate developers... Blender geometry nodes are an exception to this. Blender geometry nodes seem to use a no-code/low-code "IDE" that actually makes sense and "gets you results". NOTE: Code Project will probably flag this post of mine as SPAM. I don't know why but the Code Project algorithm is really bad about flagging me for unknown reasons. Is it a political thing?
Shawn Eary May2021 wrote:
NOTE: Code Project will probably flag this post of mine as SPAM. I don't know why but the Code Project algorithm is really bad about flagging me for unknown reasons. Is it a political thing?
Nope, the automated system has no idea what you politics are, and in fact wouldn't know any politics from a hole in the ground. The message was flagged, but that's most likely because you posted something it considered dodgy in the past and it takes a number of "legitimate" posts before it takes it's beady little eye off you! Keep posting non-spammy messages like this one, and it'll get bored and look elsewhere fairly soon. Sorry about that, but the automated system is there for a reason: you would not believe how much spam we got before this was turned on - literally thousands of poost an hour at one point. Unfortunately, a site with 15,000,000 members and a good reputation is considered a "good target" by low IQ spammers and they keep trying new ways to hit us. The automated system tries to detect these (and does a pretty good job) but sometimes a legitimate post gets caught as well and it takes time to teach it that you aren't a risk.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
Play one (!) round of online Backgammon (or whatever board or card game you prefer) and get back to the topic afterwards. Can be especially helpful at the beginning of large projects, when there's not a good balance between effort and reward yet.
-
This is one of the least talked about topic. Believe it or not but programming is hard and creating a mind-blowing software (or even going about changing/fixing an existing one) is a creative task about as difficult as creating a best selling novel or story. Irrespective of whether or not you believe software development is creative (yeah, some folks like to think of it as a purely logical "hard science" which is full of rules and no creativity), you can't deny that there are times when you feel low motivation. Even the most experienced of coders face this sometimes. A problem here is that you can't ask this on any forum because the most usual reply you get is, "Programming isn't for you dude, just choose any other field"! This, I think is both uncalled for and inhumane. If you have nothing positive to offer, at least don't demoralize further an already troubled soul. Well, coming back to the title, what do you do to motivate yourself when there is a project ahead but you just don't feel like working or you sit on the desk and start typing but nothing gets typed there, almost like a "Writer's Block"!
Do 1 thing. It goes beyond programming. But just do 1 thing. Big/small/tiny. Doesn't matter. Do 1 thing. Don't have to literally write it down, but needs to be something you can do and cross off as done (so much as code is ever ever done). Now, inertia is no panacea. It doesn't crush it, not at all. But also, sometimes, the interference has nothing to do with code or work or interest level or work ethic or dedication or employer or any of that stuff at all. Sometimes people just need to not be trying to make their brain microwave itself for a little bit because those resources are busy handling other bits of life.
