Having Trouble Getting Back On The Coding Horse
Posted July 9, 2007 at 9:24 AM
I don't know if it's the heat or the abbreviated CFUNITED week followed directly by the 4th of July week or my relationship issues, but lately, I have been feeling very lazy. I have been having trouble getting motivated to Code, which is highly unusual as I love to be coding. I have like 1000 projects rattling around in my head and I just don't seem to want to start any of them... well, that's not true - I want to start all of them, but I don't seem to be able to start any of them.
One thing I was finally able to motivate myself into doing was getting rid of my Snippets and Portfolio global navigation items; I pretty much stopped updating those sections as I started to really concentrate on my blog. If you look at my global nav, you will see that I now have the ColdFusion section there as well as a new Projects section. The ColdFusion section is still being fleshed out. The Projects section is where I will keep the most up-to-date versions of stuff like my XStandard ColdFusion Web Services and my POI Utility for reading and writing Excel files.
Hopefully, this week I will be able to snap out of this funk and get back on track. There's still so much to explore with ColdFusion 8 and all the other to-do items I have on my list.
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Reader Comments
Ben,
You're an artist bro and probably just burned out. Take a week off from the coding if you can afford it. Your brain will tell you when your ready. If you force it you'll just be spluttering around half-assing things (A lot of start/stop stuff).
BTW, I am starting to study for the Coldfusion Certified Developer's test. Man it's a broad array of stuff to know. I noticed you are 'Advanced' Certified (I would say you are very advanced, sometimes I don't understand your god-like code ramblings).
I would love to get the advanced stamp but I am horrible with multiple choice tests and not that great a programmer, so we will see.
I have the Ben Forta's study guide and I have noticed a few spelling mistakes (it makes me want to break out my red pen) but over all it is a nice resource to have beyond preparing for the test.
I hope you get your mojo back soon.
Frank
Another suggestion . . . Print view option? Please? Pretty please with sugar on top? I like to print out your posts to stick in my CF notebook, but I'm not crazy about using up the precious color ink to print out the banner image . . .
And it's summertime . . . take a little break every now and then and do what people usually do during summer.
@Frank,
Yeah, a week off would be nice :) And good luck with the certification. I can't recommend Brian Simmon's ColdFusion Testing application more highly. It will really prepare you for the test, even the random stuff that you never use but you need to know for the exam. I can't remember how much it is, but it's relatively cheap and well worth the money.
@Lola,
Yeah, good point. I will put that at the top of my list. Maybe I should just take this week and do all the little things to my site that I have been meaning to get to (such as print friendly CSS). Thanks.
I'm right there with you, man. I reached burn out about a month ago and haven't even touched any side projects. The only outside work I've been doing is to solve specific problems and/or annoyances within my own systems. I just can't bring myself to do much else.
I felt the same way after CFUnited. My brain was on overdrive taking everything in, plus I went to Flex Maniacs as well. I find I go through some sort of coding cycle. I have what seem like fairly well defined periods of coding madness and equal periods of barely being able to bring myself to typing cfoutput one more time. I bet if I actually tracked this it would make a fairly even wave of ups and downs.
I find the best thing to do when I'm in a code funk is just give in to it and go do something else. Spend a whole day goofing off and tell myself that it's ok to do so or else I feel guilty about it.
Give your brain a rest for awhile, you'll probably come back to it full of energy.
@Rob,
Yeah, it's so frustrating isn't it? I think I should start by just getting organized. Maybe if I saw a list of all the things that I wanted to do, then it might be easier to get motivated to at least get the low hanging fruit.
@Rick,
That's a good idea. I really want to get back into the gym. I should concentrate on that for a week. If nothing else, I am sure working out will get my energy level back up.
I'm about the same as you. Sometimes it may just be the existence of too many projects (it has been in the past with me).
That's when I push back most of them on my to-do list and just leave one to finish within a reasonable timeframe, and work only on that. That tends to help when the burnout is due to too many choices to decide upon.
If its just regular burnout, a day or two off usually helps - and off of a computer totally.
@Sam,
That could certainly be. That's why I think just making a To-Do list will help me see that the amount of choices isn't as vast as I might think it is. Then I can sort and prioritize.
Yes! It will! How do you keep all that stuff in your brain? It started making mine hurt so I made myself one /years/ ago! =)
Ha ha, sadly enough, so much of my to-do is based on my GMail inbox. Half the items in my inbox are now starred :) Which stresses me out even more because I hate my inbox spread over more than one page!
Yea, I've been there myself. Sometimes you get too many projects going in your head it's impossible to decide where to start.
Good luck with your certification!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYkxF14YdAw
-glen
I've been in that "don't want to code" funk since the first of the year. I do Flex and CF for 8 hours at work, then come home. All I want to do at home is watch TV, play video games, or read a book. I have some great projects in my brain, just can't muster up the energy to turn them into code.
The last time I had a vacation was a year ago for my honeymoon. Right now I'm just burned out. It started a couple of months ago, but now it's just too much and I took a week a vacation. You can't believe how refreshed I am now. I'm so refreshed that I can go another year without a vacation.
My advice: take a week of vacation; don't take your cell phone, leave your laptop at home, and just enjoy your rest. It surely worked for me.
Dmitriy
@Centrasoft Exam buster...Yes I bought that.
Hehe..as I was googling Brian's name + Coldfusion to look up this 'tool' you speak of and the first thing that populated was your apology note.
LOL :)
His product 'is' really good. Some of his questions are tricky.
Anyways thanks for the tip. I usually use his software after I read a chapter or two in the Certified Developer's Study Guide. I can only manage about 10 at a time. I have to sometimes research why the answer is what it is beyond the explanation like a code example or something. I am a slow learner.
Thanks again...
Frank
Take a little break and the horse will come back to you.
@Lola,
My blog detail pages now have a Print Page link below the blog entry. Hope that helps you out :)
Its all about pacing yourself. Push yourself too hard, and you burn out. If you need a break - take some time off. :)
