Many people are interested in becoming more effective, improving their quality of life, better remembering what they learn to occur at a higher level, create fewer errors, etc. People want to adopt strategies or structure their day to maximize effectiveness.
For some reason, the simplest corrections are overlooked.
- If you want to get better in everything you do, there is a basic step that you can take: Prioritize your sleep. Sleep deprivation is bad in all cases. End of history.
- Then there is practice – do you do any? Just drive through sitting at your desk, your car, a table, your couch?
- What about nutrition – do your body give high quality inputs according to a sound plan or eat nutrient -poor food and tips repeat your blood sugar all day?
- How about attention – do you create the conditions with which you can concentrate on your work? Or will you constantly be checked, checked and checked by endless notifications, social media addiction and the compulsion to check every 5 minutes?
These are the basics of life. Unless they take care of these areas You are probably the main restriction factor for your effectiveness. Not a hidden knowledge that you have not yet discovered. Not the perfect tool that you have not yet found. Not a magical process that ensures that you never make mistakes. Not some advanced skills that you have not unlocked.
The most common reaction when I indicate this is: “If it were just so simple.” It’s so easy!
There is Good Reasons that some people don’t sleep enough (or train or eat well or or)?
Yes, of couse. I had to work a lot of late nights, especially when I had a job who had to talk to people in China. I also have two children who interrupt my sleep quite often. But it is deliberately ignorant to act as if there were existence only Good reasons we don’t get enough sleep. I often do not get enough sleep because of my own decisions: scrolling on my cell phone that play chess, working on my computer too late with unimportant tasks, reading a book, etc. In any case, whether the Reason is good or does not matter. Sleep deprivation is the same regardless of justification.
“If it were only so simple”, science and its own experiences as a person are also ignorant. We have so much data on the negative effects of inadequate sleep, skipping movement and bad food. But I don’t need studies. Basic observations work just as well. I can monitor my own state of being and the effects of the well -rested or not see: I am mean, more sensitive and distracted when I am tired. I don’t just know about myself, but everyone around me knows it too. And the effects of sleep, nutrition and movement are extremely obvious when they are with children. Children are much more pleasant and more focused when they are well exhausted and annoyed and scattered when they are tired. If you eat well, you are pleasant and if you are hungry or blood sugar accidents, you are susceptible to tantrums. If you are inadequate and full of energy, you are unfocused and scattered and destructive and annoying.
Why do you think the same factors don’t affect you, another person? Did you cross your biology?
References
- Prioritize your sleep (Content of the member)
- The epistemology of software quality From Adora Cheung
How much sleep do you get per night? When was the last time you worked more than 40 hours a week? Are you happy in your job These are the questions that affect most effects on software quality. Studies across disciplines consistently show that the difference between technical and human solutions is the difference between results that effectively determine that “we speculate that there is a small influence” and “we are confident that there is a dramatic difference” . These findings make sense: programming is an expansion of our mind, and everything that affects our mind will affect our programming skills.