Deriving pleasure out of mundane every day code

While solving a tough problem or writing an involved piece of code, my mind is entirely occupied in solving that problem. But, at least half the time I’m writing mundane code. Just implementing your average features, going through the motions and churning out blocks of code. During this time my mind wanders — often anxious about upcoming meetings at work, or over-analyzing previous conversations, or worrying about deadlines. My mind is not at peace.

This type of wandering is annoying. It makes me impatient. I can’t wait to get done with this immediate work in front of me. I’m in rush, enveloped by this feeling that this thing, this feature, is wasting my time. I have more important things to get to, sh*t the deadline is soon approaching ...

But now I recognize this mundane-ness while it is in progress and I remind myself to enjoy it. Turn that anxiety into a time to relax my mind. This work needs to get done too right? And it cannot be rushed anyway. Rushing is how mistakes are made and this simple mundane code could come back to bite me.

Music is my drug to facilitate enjoying mundane code, and may be a good cup of decaf to go along with it.

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