How To stay Sane as a developer

How to stay happy as a developer and manage your time while at it.

There are various challenges in modern times for a developer or someone even working as a system administration. We have more tools than ever to help us with our job, but these tools all have a steep learning curve. Being a good developer also means being able to have a good work / home life balance while still delivering on deadlines at work.

Staying happy means doing things that you enjoy. Sometimes working on code constantly can be depressing or even boring for some people. If this is the case with you then I would suggest start looking into some devops tools and also into some CI tools. Tell management that you enjoy coding , but that you would like to also get involved
with applying a devops methodology to ops related things in the country. Even if all the system administration work is outsourced, doesn't mean that you can't get involved with devops kinda stuff in the company.

Which devops tools are relevant right now:

• docker + docker compose (The ability to write both docker files and docker-compose.yml files.)
• Kubernetes or Docker swarm.
• Learn to use some cloud provider such as Google Cloud or AWS. Are there other cloud providers? Just kidding.
• Learn some CI toolset. Travis-ci and circle CI are both really cool.

This might sound weird, but I recently started enjoying answering questions on stackoverflow.
This is actually really good for you to be able to build a portfolio of your knowledge. A link to a good stackoverflow profile on a CV or Resume can do wonders. You might only be getting internet points for your stackoverflow questions,but I get an enourmous amount of satisfaction from answering questions on stackoverflow, especially if I can help someone with a problem that I also struggled with. That being said here is a free idea for anyone out there listening: Steemoverflow, start a frontend for steem that can be used to have a "stackoverflow" like frontend for steem where developers get paid for answering questions.

Go to meetups, but don't over do it. Meetups can be filled with weird people that live in a make believe world, I feel if you hang around them to much they might have their "startup shine" or over optimistic idealism rub off on you. I actually am an organizer of a meetup, that I don't go to. I havn't had time lately to attend my own meetup.

Do things that you enjoy. This might sound stupid and obvious, but it isn't that obvious. A guy I worked with explained to me his method of working, which I found rather intereting. He has his "work"/serious stuff to do and in between working he switches to smaller random interesting tasks thats are things that he works in just to boost his own skill and to stay awake. If you work on boring stuff all the time then you start feeling sleepy, the same as when you sit in a dark meeting room and everyone in the meeting room starts yawning. Switching between boring and interesting things can be really good for keeping your attention span and enthusiasm throughout the course of the day. What do you do to stay happy? I would like to hear your thoughts.