Athlete's Mindset

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Software engineering as a profession is pretty demanding. Unlike manual labor, there isn't a physical toll, but there's a high mental toll. As soon as something becomes easier, the expectation as a software engineer is that it takes less time, and you can therefore get more done. In some ways, this is how software engineering career growth shakes out. You start only able to take a task and code it out, but then you start being able to coordinate a handful of tasks and code parts of them and work with others on the rest.

Then you start defining tasks and get them all done with your direct contributions or via delegation. This continues with the scope of projects you can define and lead growing alongside you. The only reason this is possible is that the things that took up all your time at first are now easy, and you are mostly delegating that work to other, more junior engineers who need that work to grow themselves.?

Athlete's Mindset

With this in mind, it's clear that consistent improvement is critical to growth, which is where the athlete mindset comes in for me. Top athletes are always looking to improve. Especially at the top, some of those improvements could be minuscule. Any edge, though, is worth the effort.

How can a software engineer act like an athlete, always looking to get a bit better? While you'll get coaching at practice (IE mentorship at work), that can't be the only thing you are trying. The athlete mentality is to do?anything?to get better, and if you're only working ~8 hours per day, there's another ~16 that may provide further improvements.

Sleep, nutrition, exercise, and rest are all activities that happen outside of work yet profoundly impact your performance. How can you expect to be at your best mentally if you haven't slept enough? Or you've eaten junk food that's made your brain foggy?

Taking an athlete's approach to software engineering is to take a holistic approach and ensure that you, as a software-creating machine, are tuned as best as possible.?

Tuning

My best work hours are in the morning because that's when my mind is the sharpest. Therefore, I've tuned my schedule to line up my most critical work when I'm at my best.?

Furthermore, I pay close attention to my sleep and diet. I sleep, on average, 8 hours a night and track that fairly closely via my Apple Watch. I also weigh myself every morning, aware of how I've eaten the day before, how that may affect my weight, and how I feel.?

Lastly, I've found that my body does best when it's under a relatively heavy load, so I workout almost every day. Of course, I take breaks, sometimes for several weeks at a time, but it's also not uncommon for me to have worked out every single day for weeks on end.?

Conclusion

Finding what works best for you is an ongoing journey. We constantly change as we age and the world around us evolves. What works for me now I don't necessarily expect to work for me in 10 years, but I'm excited to continuously explore and find out what'll change.?

Taking an athlete's approach to your work may seem like it is breaking your work-life balance, but that's just it: this approach helps define that balance. Professional athletes know they need to let their bodies rest to perform maximally and do so with great intent. So why shouldn't software professionals do the same?