What are your secrets to feel less overwhelmed as a computer programmer?

I have been asked the above question on Quora and a lot of people seem to like my answer so I repeat it here.

I can tell you a really simple pack of “secrets”

1. Sleep properly!!! Many programmers sleep too few and drink a lot of caffeine. When they are working in the night for that reason but many times they either watch movies, play games, surf the net until too late in the night. You do these things to “rest” but they make you more tired!
2. Drink plain clean tap water instead of coffee.
3. In the weekdays or days before you want to work do not drink alcohol. I like a small amount of my house-wine I am making, but you feel it. I can actually tolerate a huge amount of drinks, but I can tell the difference even if you drink 1-2 glass daily to drinking none except when there are friends or other good things. Also I try to never get completely “wasted” as it might happen really rarely anyways but try to be it a yearly thing not a monthly stuff! Young people think they are strong anyways, but will be surprised how much gain comes with this!
4. Go to work as early as possible and leave as early as possible. Many-many programmers prefer long sleeps in the morning or at most 9–17 work cycles. The problem with this is that you will be not so productive in the morning before the start of work and will come home late. I like resting and sleeping long, but when I was working at my former company I forced myself to work from 7–15 or 7–16 at most. Actually usually I came home much earlier than my collegues who lived in the capital city! And I have been travelling with a car to a village!!! The good stuff with being home at 4pm or earlier (on Fridays I made a system to it be 3pm or earlier) is that the sun is up very nicely and you can go out to your garden, to the nice lake in the neighborhood, work on your wine field, go to any long running in the forest etc.
5. Work on things as early as possible! Many people wait and procrastinate even when they work for a company and try to “cheat” the system, but it usually ends in them overworking after missing a deadline. Avoid indulging in long meetings and useless planning or finding excuses like “the customer has not finalized the requirements” while you are actually not even helping them just sit around. This is especially true if you are working alone.
6. Create a culture of positivism, enthusiasm and that kind of teamwork like in a “war room” or when friends work together enthusiastically! Many bosses and managers have no idea what waste is going on and have no leadership, but only management skills. Also many times they just don’t have time for it actually even if they know this stuff! Organize yourselves towards this direction!
7. Create a culture around you where people can feel they can securely fail! This is really under-estimated, but many people are being let down because they fear failure! Seniors fear what if a young hot-shot knows it better, young people fear of doing stuff badly, some generally hide their errors literally until it is too late and some are in a frozen state. I remember that on my first project I was thought to be a hot-shot and know-all who learned the new tech we had to use and whenever I felt this and had an opportunity to openly tell one of my failures I did so! It was really-really necessary and the team became much more aware that they can fail, tell it, we solve it as soon as possible and it is okay. It was still lurking around and in some cases this feeling is unavoidable for some, but YOU should not be that one! You should know better!

Originally posted on quora here

Tags: less, overwhelmed, secrets, productivity, tips, quora