Controlling your emotions for work?

[nicksaiz65]

Yesterday I had a programming project that I wanted to make a bit more progress on. I had been working out some financial stuff earlier in the day, so I was extremely stressed out. I told myself I would watch TV for 30 minutes, and then get back to the programming. I watching for 3 hours and then just waking up the next morning.

That's all well and good now, because I didn't have a hard deadline... but what if I had a job and had something that was due the next day? I can't let that happen.

How do you control your emotions and stay at work to be ultra productive? Usually I tell myself I'll take 30 minutes off and then get back to it, but it didn't work this time.

Just more willpower and discipline? I know this is kind of an odd question, but I want to be as efficient as I can working on my purpose lol.

 

[Mike32ct]

Yesterday I had a programming project that I wanted to make a bit more progress on. I had been working out some financial stuff earlier in the day, so I was extremely stressed out. I told myself I would watch TV for 30 minutes, and then get back to the programming. I watching for 3 hours and then just waking up the next morning.

That's all well and good now, because I didn't have a hard deadline... but what if I had a job and had something that was due the next day? I can't let that happen.

How do you control your emotions and stay at work to be ultra productive? Usually I tell myself I'll take 30 minutes off and then get back to it, but it didn't work this time.

Just more willpower and discipline? I know this is kind of an odd question, but I want to be as efficient as I can working on my purpose lol.

The good news is if that was for a job, you probably wouldn't have done that. The thing that keeps me going for work is wanting to "pull my weight" and "not let the team down." Additionally, if the boss is gonna be pissed off at somebody tomorrow, let it be somebody else lol.

Self-discipline for personal projects is tougher because your brain "knows" that you aren't going to get in trouble if you slip up. Honestly, just hit the reset and try again. Get plenty of sleep and try again tomorrow. For personal projects at home, if I start a productive task early, I can usually get a lot done that day. If I procrastinate in the morning (because it's technically a day off), it's usually game over; I'll end up wasting time the rest of the day.

As for controlling emotions, I'll defer to the others.

 

[Billtx49]

As I see it, the only aspect to see work in is doing something you’re at least somewhat passionate about. Passion drives excellence no matter what others will tell you. If you don’t have fun, it’s not worth any amount of work or time.
Ask me again after a 24 straight hour shift of summer pea combine field work for the green giant in my teens in Wisconsin 30 years ago…
Dam long hard work. Yes
Doubt any second of my tine investment spent in it, NO

 

[Ohso-Phresh]

Yesterday I had a programming project that I wanted to make a bit more progress on. I had been working out some financial stuff earlier in the day, so I was extremely stressed out. I told myself I would watch TV for 30 minutes, and then get back to the programming. I watching for 3 hours and then just waking up the next morning.

That's all well and good now, because I didn't have a hard deadline... but what if I had a job and had something that was due the next day? I can't let that happen.

How do you control your emotions and stay at work to be ultra productive? Usually I tell myself I'll take 30 minutes off and then get back to it, but it didn't work this time.

Just more willpower and discipline? I know this is kind of an odd question, but I want to be as efficient as I can working on my purpose lol.

Controlling emotions is similar to an attempt at controlling the waves in the ocean.

Emotions are meant to be felt,...
E(nergy in) motion

 

[Georgepithyou]

To avoid procastrination I always do what I can to stop things from getting too monotonous, try taking regular small breaks and fry to do a few different tasks throughout the day.

 

[Papa_smu]

Pomodoro intervals work well when you need to be productive. Also another technique to psych yourself up to work is using three second mediation.

• Pomodoro
  • 25 minutes of work
  • 5 minutes of rest
  • 5 rounds
  • 30-15 minute break
• Three second meditation
  • Sit down infront of your computer. Bring up the IDE.
  • Close your eyes, take a deep breath.
  • Count to three in your mind or out loud
  • Open your eyes
  • Work

 

[Ohso-Phresh]

Pomodoro intervals work well when you need to be productive. Also another technique to psych yourself up to work is using three second mediation.

• Pomodoro
  • 25 minutes of work
  • 5 minutes of rest
  • 5 rounds
  • 30-15 minute break
• Three second meditation
  • Sit down infront of your computer. Bring up the IDE.
  • Close your eyes, take a deep breath.
  • Count to three in your mind or out loud
  • Open your eyes
  • Work

Yeah, I use BeFocused on MacOS. Super supportive productive app based on the above principles.

 

[nicksaiz65]

Pomodoro intervals work well when you need to be productive. Also another technique to psych yourself up to work is using three second mediation.

• Pomodoro
  • 25 minutes of work
  • 5 minutes of rest
  • 5 rounds
  • 30-15 minute break
• Three second meditation
  • Sit down infront of your computer. Bring up the IDE.
  • Close your eyes, take a deep breath.
  • Count to three in your mind or out loud
  • Open your eyes
  • Work

I tried these techniques today. Worked pretty well.

Do you set yourself bite sized goals in your programming projects? Like: "today I'm going to implement this function" or "today I will make sure that my program can output data to the screen correctly." And then tell yourself "I won't sleep until I get this part of the program done." It really frustrates me me how even though I start early on my assignments, I can never finish them on time because I have to cram a lot of the heavy work to the end.

I use this technique when I have to learn new music, i.e. "I don't get to quit until I can play this page well, or work on this technique that I want to perfect."

I was wondering if this technique would work for programming. I'm really tired of not being able to finish my projects on time even though I start early lol.

 

[Papa_smu]

Do you set yourself bite sized goals in your programming projects? Like: "today I'm going to implement this function" or "today I will make sure that my program can output data to the screen correctly." And then tell yourself "I won't sleep until I get this part of the program done." It really frustrates me me how even though I start early on my assignments, I can never finish them on time because I have to cram a lot of the heavy work to the end.

I think you pretty much answered your own question.

Although, most devs fall into the trap of "Get it done, or I don't sleep" which is the biggest time waster. I get it that it comes from a good place which is a good work ethic and genuine interest in the problem they are solving. But you'll get anything done in a timely fashion that way.

 

[nicksaiz65]

I think you pretty much answered your own question.

Although, most devs fall into the trap of "Get it done, or I don't sleep" which is the biggest time waster. I get it that it comes from a good place which is a good work ethic and genuine interest in the problem they are solving. But you'll get anything done in a timely fashion that way.

Sounds good to me. Do you usually listen to music or have on background noise when you're working out of curiosity? I've found it helps me a ton, and I also know some people that can only work with music, but I know some programmers like dead silence as well.

 

[Rainman4707]

Read "how to think and grow rich by Napoleon hill"
You can get anything you want in this life. The only have to do one thing. Put 100% into it. Be obessed. Eat, sleep and breathe your goal, purpose.

Only read the book if you're 100% committed to your goal. I stopped reading 3 quarters the way through because I'm not 100% committed to anything in my life.

 

[lamath]

Controlling emotions is similar to an attempt at controlling the waves in the ocean.

Emotions are meant to be felt,...
E(nergy in) motion

Embracing the emotion will increase his control and tolerance.

Pomodoro intervals work well when you need to be productive. Also another technique to psych yourself up to work is using three second mediation.

• Pomodoro
  • 25 minutes of work
  • 5 minutes of rest
  • 5 rounds
  • 30-15 minute break
• Three second meditation
  • Sit down infront of your computer. Bring up the IDE.
  • Close your eyes, take a deep breath.
  • Count to three in your mind or out loud
  • Open your eyes
  • Work

Embracing the emotion will increase his control and tolerance.

Mixing those 2 recommendation together and you have a winner

 

[backseatjuan]

@nicksaiz65 It's easy to realize you have a cycle within your brain.
You get bored, or tired, which leads to taking a break, which leads to not wanting to get back to boring or trying thing you quit doing in the first place.

All of us have cycles in our brains, we have certain to-do things when certain receptors inside the head activate. For example go watch tv when the working is boring as fck. Another one is go jerk off when alone and get horny, or look away when someone makes eye contact with us, or start thinking about what to say when you want to approach, etc.

All of these programming is overcome by doing things differently. Try tricking your brain next time, tell yourself I need to break this vicious cycle of procrastination by finishing my work now.

Your brain gets used to things that you do over and over again, it's called addiction, and so just do things over and over again and get addicted to finishing your work, instead of procrastinating.