Describe your mental warm-up routine:
Before starting to code, I like to do a 5-minute exercise to sharpen my mind & eye-sight. While I can perceive the benefits of my routine, it's quite unsophisticated.
I wonder if you have suggestions or are willing to share your personal experience as to how do you prepare your mind & body before starting to work?
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my morning routine:
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[1] the first daily exposure of sunlight to your retinas will send a signal to your biological clock to start your waking-and-sleeping cycles. after a few minutes, you'll get an energizing cortisol pulse from your adrenal glands, and twelve to fourteen hours later your pineal gland will begin to release sleep-inducing melatonin. the neuroscientist andrew huberman explains this in depth in this episode of his show.
[2] in my case, "deep work" = total focus on the task. no internet browsing, no texting or socializing, and usually no leaving the room (even to use the bathroom).
Thank you, Channing, the "cortisol awakening response", was precisely what I was looking for. Thanks for including the podcast link 🙏
My morning routine:
Thanks for sharing! I mostly agree with your routine and have subscribed to your beta program.
I'm looking forward on trying it :)
You the man Santiago! Really looking forward to getting your feedback and insight. Hope you have a great rest of the day.
This is an interesting idea, Santiago! I've used warm up routines for sports and creative pursuits like poetry, but never work!
Would you be willing to share your warm up routine?
Sure, I usually play a Spider Solitaire intermediate game when first sitting at the computer before opening any other tabs or the text editor.
I'm interested to learn more about your poetry warm-up routine, and I also find it surprising that warm-ups are so common for other activities, yet for something we do several hours a day is not really discussed.
Oh, interesting! Playing a game to sharpen the mind for work... That sounds both fun and productive. Nice!
Poetry warm-up is making a cup of tea, sitting down in a comfortable space, testing my pen, taking some deep breaths, and allowing my body to relax. Then I remind myself of the principles of my poetry by writing them down on the sheet: "True. Towards calm." Then I write.
You know, I'd never thought about it before you pointed it out, but you're totally right! I do a warm-up for basically any physical activity more vigorous than a walk, but it never occurred to me that a mental warm-up could enhance my effectiveness at work.
Do you feel like the benefits of your game of Spider Solitaire persist through a multiple-hour work session? What do you notice is different after you play a game?
Cool thanks for sharing your poetry routine!
About the multi-hour benefits, I think that for my eyesight it's good enough. Actually, after a couple of hours what I need is the opposite, either a short rest or a longer pause (10 - 30 minutes). This is the same for my mind, after coding for a couple of hours I need to cool off rather than warm it up (almost like a PC).
After 4 hours of coding, I usually hit my limit in terms of product development. Then, I usually need to take at least 1 hour (usually a full day) to think about what I accomplished and where I want to go next. Thus, I usually follow up with non-coding activities like writing, networking, taking meetings, or strategical thinking.
I'm the same way... A few pauses interspersed in the work session make it feel way less onerous. I was introduced to the Pomodoro technique at a coding boot camp, but prior to that I had always worked a couple of hours at a stretch without a break.
Nice, it sounds like you have a good workflow. I prefer to get to the most intensive intellectual tasks early, too.
Always interesting to hear what helps other people tick! Thanks for the responses. 🙏🏻
Exact reason I’m build AdaPulse.co to enable/ adopt better habits while working. Running our beta in January and would love for you to join!
I like the concept of 'paying myself first'. I try to have as many things that help me go through the day as possible before getting to work. That includes sleeping well, eating healthy, learn new things that I want to learn.
My routine:
Still experimenting every now and then changings bits but this seems to be working well for me.
-Reading book for 10-15 minutes
-Playing with my dog&cat
They help me to prepare for the long and busy day both mentally and physically.
Breathing meditation and positive affirmations
Exact reason I’m build AdaPulse.co to enable/ adopt better habits while working. Running our beta in January and would love for you to join!
My routine: make coffee, turn on my "work music", start my time tracker.
Exact reason I’m build AdaPulse.co to enable/ adopt better habits while working. Running our beta in January and would love for you to join!
Hi Ian. Just signed up for your beta, and I would be happy to test it out and give you feedback. If you don't mind, I'm working on own productivity app called Ormi.io (which combines task management and time tracking) and would love it if you could sign up for the beta which I also hope to launch in January. Thanks!
Also the mobile view is a little clunky FYI could potential use a revamp. A lot of stuff was getting cut off and a few areas were overlapping.
Lol - thanks for the feedback. I know the website needs a lot of work. I just threw it up there but I haven't told anyone about it or promoted it yet. I'll fix it shortly! 😉
Awesome Steven - appreciate the support and definitely interested in checking it out. Going to sign up now!
Coffee.
Haha I don't have a routine per se, but I have noticed I'm at my sharpest in the early morning. I wake up super early, at like 4am, and I start working shortly after that.
I live on a busy city street, so I find those early morning hours super peaceful and I tend to have a lot more focus then than later in the day.
I get what you mean by the 4 am calmness (despite living in the countryside).
For quite some time I followed a dual sleeping schedule, and I loved programming around 2- 6 am
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