How Can I Be More Productive Outside Of Work?

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Hey folks, I'm just leaving work. Got to get back for the dev leader live stream which is every Monday 700 p.m. Pacific. If you haven't heard, I'll remind you at the end of this talk as well. We're going to go to experienced devs for the topic today because we love experienced dev subreddit. And this one is from someone asking about how to be productive. And they said, uh, not like just at work, but like like kind of asking about like outside of work, how do you get productive? And we've talked about this on this channel before. And uh I think it's an interesting topic cuz I think there's a lot of different ways to look at this. Different things work for different people. And then of course, we have to be reminded that like we're not robots, right? And so this kind of topic is important to me because uh I like making sure we can talk about productivity.

I think talking about burnout's really important. So there's a whole bunch of things in and around this that I think are enjoyable for me to talk about and also like beneficial to tie together. I got to pull this wallet out of my back pocket. It's not that there's a lot of there's not money in there. Be nice if there was, but there isn't. But that's digging into my butt. Okay. So, um I think you know I'm I'm glad to see it uh like right at the top of the comments and I only kind of glanced at like the first one or two, but um you know people jumping in kind of right away to be like hey like you know if you're feeling like you're trying to be productive like over the weekend and like outside of work and stuff like there's a reason why you start to hit a bit of a all and um it's like you do need to have like a mental break.

It's not sustainable. It's not realistic to be able to push 100% of the time and like, you know, be perfectly productive because it will burn you out. And when we talk about things like burnout, um, do you guys know who do not that you can respond to me, but do you know who Dr. K is? He's a uh a psychiatrist. Uh, I believe that's what his title would be if I'm not mistaken. But he's a YouTuber and uh a therapist. Is this person gonna This person It's a bus. Is this bus gonna go in front? Um, anyway, he's like very popular on YouTube, but uh I I really love um the way he walks through things and he'll actually do like therapy sessions with people that they've agreed to obviously and like they'll he'll show them on YouTube and stuff and like he'll do it

with like people that are popular on social media and stuff like obviously it draws attention but he was talking about burnout with um I think he was talking with the with the primogen about burnout and um so obviously like that's very very relevant here and um he he was saying like and I'm going to butcher it but this idea that it's it's interesting when people talk about burnout one of the things that they do is they go well I got to stop doing a bunch of things and he's like that's not actually that's not quite right. Um he was like you get Man, I wish I I should have like written it down, but he talked about burnout being this thing where it's more like you're doing a lot and not feeling like you're getting um it's not that you weren't getting results, a lot of effort for not a lot of like result basically.

So you're doing work that feels like it's meaningless almost. Again, I'm butchering it. I apologize, but if you watch Dr. K's um sort of like session with the prime um primogen or prime he uh he does a really good job of explaining that when I heard him saying it I was like holy crap like it feels very relevant because for myself like I am someone who tries to be very productive and I don't like burnout isn't just from doing a lot of stuff but I've talked about earlier this year if you watch some of my older videos from earlier this year saying like, hey, like I hit a period of burnout very fast and yes, I was doing a lot, but I was already doing a lot of stuff and wasn't burnt out from it. So, I think it's like the type of work that was getting done is what caused me to burn out.

So, let's beat the light. Can we do it, buddy? Watch out. Watch out, pal. Okay. Um, why is everyone stopping before getting on the highway? We need to accelerate to get onto the highway, folks. One sec. Okay. Um, so I think that's a like a really important thing to address kind of early on when we talk through this is that like don't get me wrong, I think it's it's easy for people to fall into a productivity trap where they're like just more and more more and they're like no, I have to keep doing it and then you burn out from it. But um I thought that it was very helpful framing for Dr. okay to talk about this as if um you know it's it's not just the amount of what's getting done, it's actually the type of work that can cause burnout. Um and again really resonated with me.

So I wanted to kind of just like reshare that with folks. So again, I thought in the Reddit thread it was very good that people were calling this kind of thing out. And I do think that it's important that people do take breaks. Um I personally struggle with this a lot where like I I love video games, right? I love to play video games. I grew up playing role playing games. I would play for folks that know like Diablo, Diablo II. Um, I remember being a a teenager and like I would wake up, you know, roll over to my computer, play Diablo, and then at some point late in the evening, like roll back out of my chair into my bed and go to sleep. Like, and that's just what I did. I played Diablo. I loved it. And um, so I love role playing games and I I love playing games, but I feel like guilty is probably the closest word.

I feel guilty when I play video games. I feel like I'm not being productive. I feel like there's something else I should be doing because I don't just like want to rot playing video games, but um I periodically need to remind myself like, "Hey man, like your brain needs a break. You need that." And um it's it's really weird now because when I play video games, like I haven't finished a video game. I couldn't tell you the last video game I finished, right? Um like Expedition 33, everyone was raving about it. I'm like, I gotta try it. Like I love role playing games. Everyone's saying this is incredible. Started playing it. I'm like, this is incredible. It's so much fun. It's really hard. It's a good challenge, but like story is amazing. And I I like I've stopped. And I think I like I start cutting myself off now because um I don't know when this started happening but I I just like cut myself off now.

And I think it's good because like my the way my personality is like I want to keep playing. I don't know I don't know how to stop myself. So something something's changed where like I am naturally stopping myself and I think it's actually very good. But um I I like I said I keep trying to remind myself it's it's not something I should feel guilty about. I need to make sure that I am taking breaks. Um I think if I think about my own what's a good way to frame this up? I w I wasn't always like this from like a productivity perspective, like outside of work. Uh I've Oh man, I hate when bikes drive up like that. Feel like that's asking for a problem. But anyway, um I've talked about on this channel where I said, you know, like even as an intern in terms of being like a software developer and stuff.

Um before I had my first internship, I had been programming for a lot of years. So, um I'm not saying like I was a programming guru, whiz kid. Um but I I felt like, hey, in an internship, the things that they're asking me to do, I can do pretty well. But I also like I just didn't give a It's probably the best way to put it. Like I'm a kid, I want to play video games. Like when it's when it's 5:00, I'm out of here, right? Like I'm going to work on the tasks you give me, but I'm not going above and beyond. like I like I just don't care. And um it wasn't until I started working full-time until that that switched. And then like for work at least, it was like, you know, I'm very motivated for work. I'm very engaged in work and I'm going to bust my ass.

But um it wasn't a thing outside of work. So, you know, I worked many like for for many years worked super long hours, worked weekends because I enjoyed doing it. But, um, yeah, like I don't know. I wasn't making content. I wasn't trying to like have side businesses. I wasn't I play video games if I need to relax or I'd go out and like go to the bars or go just kick back and relax. Not that I was going to bars a lot, but if it's a weekend and I had friends visiting, you know, we're going to go out, we're going to go have fun. And um I like I don't know like my life is very different now.

When I um when I left Magnet Forensics and started working for Microsoft, I I think I kind of looked at my time outside of work like I need to I I don't I don't know what the right way to kind of frame it is, but like I need to make the most out of this time. I think it was a bit of a a couple things like a reset point for me to be like obviously I have to to bust my ass at work. Like my work ethic's not going to change. That's kind of ingrained in me now. But like I need to I need to be the one who's investing into myself. So that means for like content creation like I want that to be a thing. I want my personal brand to be strong. Okay. No one's going to do that for me except me, right?

If I want to start a side project that turns into a business, no one's going to do that for me except me. Um, all of these things like need to be done for me. And I don't know. I think I think I never worried about it before um before Microsoft because I I probably had in my mind like the my future's kind of set I guess and so like don't don't worry about it right like kind of put in the time, put in the effort, future's kind of set. And I I think that changed for me dramatically where it's like, hey, look, like, you know, it's things don't just basically if you're sitting back waiting, you're going to be disappointed if you just expect that like um like that I I'm gonna have the life that I want to have, I guess, is probably the way I'd put that.

So um so yeah like productivity has become a really big thing for me but if I think about how Dr. K framed up that whole point around burnout and I think about my own experiences with burnout and I think about how I try to stay productive. I think something that has worked well for me is that I have several things that are call them hobbies. They're interests. Let's say I have several interests that I can rotate between that are all like a productivity thing. I'm going to give you the comparison that's that's different. Okay. So, if I go back to when I was working at Magnet Forensics, I didn't have productivity things that I would rotate between. I had um you know, I like modified cars, so it would be spending a lot of time uh doing car shows. Um you know, I would drive everywhere to take my car to car shows.

Um spending time in shops because my car was always in shops. um video games. Uh what else? Like my life wasn't really that exciting, but like the stuff I was spending time on. So, it's also worth mentioning too like for social media before I took this kind of content creation seriously because I was doing a lot of car shows and stuff. I ran like social media for my modified car, which might sound weird to some people, but if you're in the car scene, that's probably not that unusual to you. So, I would spend a lot of time like, you know, trying to meet up with photographers or I was trying to learn how to do photography as well. Um, but sure, like maybe if I stuck with that, that could have been something that was like a turn that into a, you know, getting sponsors, making that a productivity thing.

never it was the worst decision like financially. So, I don't recommend that to anyone, but um like I would rotate my time between those things or like I said, you know, uh going out with friends and stuff on weekends and like nothing I did was was productive. And usually what would happen is like if I had something where I'm like, "Hey, I want to go do this." Like I want to I've mentioned this before, I want to go build, you know, write some program. I want to go do something. I would often catch myself being like, "Hey, if you're going to go like spend time like or like waste your time building stuff, like why don't you just do it for work?" Because like they reward you for it. It has a positive impact. Like it's almost not worth your time and effort to go build other stuff when you could be building for work.

And I would re like revert to that. But it's it's like I said, it's very different now. And I think a lot of the things that I rotate between are productivity things. So to to give you an example, um if I even just talk about content creation, right? If I want to spend time on content creation, I could be researching YouTube video ideas. I have multiple channels. I have multiple channels where I can go making content for either programming tutorials. Um, I could be trying to get a head start on what um code commute topics do I want to go through if I don't have questions waiting. Uh, I could be trying to network for for podcast interviews. Um, I could just I could go back like I haven't written a technical blog article in in well over a year. Like I could go write blog articles.

I was spending a lot of time doing that. I could be spending more time on social media responding to comments and finding new people to engage with. Like all of that from a content creator perspective, there's a lot of things that I could be spending time even just in that space ro rotating between. But again, like for me personally, even if I'm rotating between different YouTube channels and different uh forms of creating content, that would burn me out for sure. Um this is why I will never be like an influencer. I am I am someone who is you know I am a software engineer. I am a software engineering manager and I happen to create content. It's not the other way around. Um I my life could not be about making content because it's it's simply not fulfilling enough.

Um I enjoy doing it but it's not like a as a the rest of my life or my entire life I mean um okay so that's one part okay well what else okay well I build brand ghost on the side so I am trying to build software that is a side business where we have paying customers cool so like I could invest time in that and there's things within that that I could rotate between I could go building out more features I could be reaching out to existing customers I could be trying to acquire new customers, right? Like there's I could be researching what competitors are doing and trying to see like if we should or could incorporate those things. There's so much to rotate in between on that. Okay.

I have um like in addition to the content research uh like something that try I try to keep myself on my toes more is like for for packages and stuff that I can go building like software with like I need to go spend more time researching that kind of stuff and practice building with it. I can't go make a YouTube on some topic if I've never used the thing before. Um, so I'm trying to pay a little bit more attention to that kind of stuff, spending time that way. And it's a productivity thing. There's like I do uh not like super actively, but I do some real estate investment. So like okay, like do I have something where I'm like am I researching an area? Am I researching like uh partners to invest with? Like that's something else I can spend time with. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that I can rotate between and um even in those examples like within a given domain, I can still rotate there.

Um and I think what's nice about that is that when I'm feeling like something is burning me out, instead of just being like, "Oh, I can't do anything." I'm like, "No, I just let me go look over here." like here's another thing I do where I can be productive. And I think that's helped me tremendously get a lot of stuff done because I can pick productive things and move between them. I really got to switch lanes here. You guys got to let me in. Um I don't know. There's got to be an accident cuz this is like the craziest lineup I've seen in a long time. Um, so again, bringing this back to the Dr. K thing is like I I believe that one of the reasons I don't get like crazy burnout from doing a bunch of stuff is cuz I'm I'm picking things

that I enjoy doing and then when I start to get like tired from them too much, I I have to be proactive about spending more time and attention on other things. And if I'm constantly rotating between them enough, then that feeling of being burnt out from them doesn't creep up as fast because there's enough things to rotate between. Um, and I and I really believe that that's that's helping a lot. So, um, I'm not telling you this because I'm like, oh, like it's it's simple, like just do too many things and you'll never burn out. Uh, not the case. I just mean that I've been fortunate enough to identify things where uh I can satisfy that productivity urge. Like there's something in me that's like you need to be spending your time doing productive things with things that I enjoy that are productive. And I'm going to need some focus very soon because we got to get over to this fast lane before it cut off.

But this is just brutal. This guy's got a a plasty dipped car. That's real weird. Plasti dip is a lot more common in the US, it seems, than in Canada where I'm from. Like people have plasti dipped, but like seeing a whole car plasti dipped is not not really a thing. It happens, but it's very rare in Canada for my experience. Um, okay, one more lane to get over. So, if if I'm thinking about like recommendations for this person, right, is like number one, uh, definitely don't want to suggest like you just give up your life and the things you're interested in just to be productive, to say that you're productive. Like that's not good. I would try to be like clear and focused about what areas you're trying to improve in. Right? Is that you know for you? Are you trying to be more productive because you want to to learn new things?

Are you trying to uh understand things that you know even better? Are you trying to um I don't know like are you trying to make money on the side? Like is that one of the goals? like what are the goals this person needs to not follow so close with their plasted car cuz if that plasted up car touches mine oh boy not going to be okay. Um, but I think that's part one is like figure out like what are the things that you're trying to be productive with because if you don't know that and it's just like I feel like I'm wasting time and I need to be productive like I feel like you can kind of steer yourself in a into a weird spot. That's part one. Um, then I think from there you want to make sure that you like don't just dedicate all of your your waking moments to that thing.

Uh, I think it's probably good to set aside some time, time box it, right? Like so say for example, I want to learn new programming topics. Cool. Like how much time do you feel like you can dedicate towards that, right? on on a Saturday, right? Can you dedicate one hour every Saturday to it? Could you dedicate a couple hours? Like, try to pick something that doesn't feel like after one week you're going to be like, I hate my life and I can't imagine doing this again. So, start small. Start with something where you're like, "This feels like it's not going to be a strain. I can try it." And when I say a strain, I should clarify too. Like some people when they talk about um how much they have going on outside of work and all of that, they're like, "I don't have any free time." So when I'm saying it's not a strain, if you prioritize this and you don't have other free time, you're probably giving up some other uh something else.

So it might be a strain on the things you already do. But what I'm trying to get at is it's not a strain on like, you know, you're not going to sit there for 8 hours and try to program straight and not get up from a desk. Like that's probably going to cause you some strain from that or you're not going to want to do that thing. So start small with it. You can always add more if you find that you can, you know, dedicate more focus, time, and energy to it. So I would I would look at that. I would give some thought into like what does it look like to Oh my god, what's on the road here? Like metal pieces. What a terrible drive so far. Um give some thought into like what taking rest is going to look like. So again, the goal is not to eliminate rest and say, "Well, you know, we'll sleep when we're dead.

Um my life is productivity." what it like what does it look like to rest? Like again for me um I feel fortunate that I have things where I can take a break from I can take a break from working on brand ghost which sometimes very much feels like a job and I'm like cool like I'm going to go I'm going to go research like some cool nougat packages that I've seen people talking about so I can try them out. Sometimes me switching between programming for brand ghost and just like programming a you know a dummy project or something like even though it's programming that's a context switch and I might go from being like frustrated or like feeling a little bit burnt out to like hey this is pretty cool like this is enjoyable. Um, so for me that's something that works. Not perfectly all the time, but it doesn't have to be well I have to go to sleep or I have to meditate or I have to watch TV or read a book.

But if you want those things like think give it some conscious thought around what types of things are are you going to use for rest. So I think that's important. Um, right. You don't just want to like eliminate all these things and say no it's only productivity. So that's another thing that I think is important. Oh man, this highway is such garbage. Um what else? What else? What else? I'm running a little low on steam because this drive is pretty crap. I think um I think physical activity of some sort getting incorporated is going to be helpful. I know we're talking about productivity, but I'm trying to mention like some ideas for like for breaks because I I'm trying to channel some of that from the Reddit thread cuz I I believe it, right? If um if you're trying to fill your time with like things I'm going to be productive with, what are the things that are going to help you either move around, think about different things, relax your brain?

Um like again, like for me sometimes it's giving my brain different challenges. I know that sounds like maybe weird to some people. It's like, well, if you're stressed out from this thing, thinking a lot, shouldn't you just do nothing? But like I don't like doing nothing if that makes sense. Like I don't like watching TV. I really don't enjoy watching TV at all because I would rather be doing something. And that doesn't mean it has to be productive. Like I would rather play video games and watch TV cuz I'm at least doing something. There's something about sitting still and not doing anything that kind of I just don't enjoy. So, um, for me, I think that's why it works really well if I context switch and oh, I'm solving different problems now. Like, this is fun again. I think that works. But I understand that's not going to be the case for for everyone else.

It's fine. Okay, buddy. Let's go. I don't understand how people get in the fast lane and then go below the speed limit. It's very odd. Like what? Pick a different lane. There's a bunch of them. Um yeah, physical activity. Like for me, um you know, I like I do CrossFit now. I was going to say I like doing CrossFit. I don't like doing CrossFit. Um, it's uh it's hard, but I think getting some time in the gym for me is the way to go. For some people that might be going for a walk, could be, you know, you play a sport on a team, whatever. Go do something. I think being able to break up what you're doing with something physical doesn't have to be like extremely taxing, but just doing something else and moving around, I think, could be really helpful. But um that just goes back to making sure that you have some balance because I think that's key.

Um yeah, I don't know. I think I'm going to probably start repeating myself, but um to summarize, right, having some goals in mind for like what are you trying to be productive with? Trying to do some time boxing, starting off small. I think that's important. coming up with things that you're going to consciously consider for rest so that when you're like, "Oh, I got to cut out all of this." It's like, "No, you need some of it." And uh try to do a better job than I do about feeling guilty for things. You know, if you're going to feel guilty for for resting, like no, it's okay. Um I've had, you know, I'm not saying that from following all these like I never get burnout. There's definitely times where especially if I've had like I don't know like a week where I'm on call or something like the I was actually on call for almost a month straight by the way.

Um which is pretty challenging. Um so like past month for me has been kind of like when when work is done my brain's a little bit fried. It's just kind of how it is. Um, and I've definitely had some evenings where I go, "Okay, like work's done. Like, what? It's time for me to go solve like interesting challenges for me. Like, it's my time to go do this." And there's some times where I'm just like, I actually can't like I I I acknowledge like I need to go get some sleep and um I'll just go to bed early. like this. Actually, this happened this past weekend on on Saturday and Sunday. I on Saturday in particular, I went to bed way earlier and it was just me trying to acknowledge like, hey, look, like you're fried right now. It's just how it is. Like, I have to give myself a little bit of um I don't know, like room to breathe that way.

And so, I went to bed early on Saturday. I slept and uh I woke up super early on Sunday, but I felt great. I felt like a million bucks. I started my my Sunday off nice and early and then it's like great, I'm I'm already back to being super productive or feeling that way at least. So, that feels good to me. Um, but you know, like I think if I would have tried to push through on the Saturday and been like, "Nope, you haven't put in enough like you haven't done enough content creation." Uh, like I'm behind on resume reviews for um, Dev Leader Path to Tech, the YouTube channel right now. And uh, I wanted to get more done on on the weekend and I simply didn't. Um, like I said, Saturday I was just fried. But like if I would have stayed up to try doing more resume reviews to catch up on them, my Sunday would have been wrecked.

I would have done a crappy job on Saturday, then my Sunday would be wrecked. And then what am I what am I actually getting done from a productivity perspective, right? Like it's overall just crap. And so it's not worth it. So, I think the more that you're like, I don't know, have awareness of this stuff, the more that you can kind of tune what you're doing and uh and kind of listen to yourself. Like you, if you if you haven't pushed your limits a little bit, you might not know what the signs are. Um, and that's fine, but like and for other people, you might know right away, and you don't have to test your limits to know like what your signs are. I think it took me a little while to kind of figure that out because there would be times where I'm like, you know, doing the opposite of what I just said where it's like, nope, you haven't you haven't gotten a lot done today.

Like, you got to stay up and get it done. And doing that enough times to realize like, man, like I had a super unproductive weekend. I felt like crap the whole time. Like, is this is this what I should be doing, right? And the answer is no. Approach it differently. So, I'm kind of learning my signs like, you know, if you if you're tired, like, dude, go to sleep. It's not this lane's going to end, buddy. You can't drive there. You will learn. Um, you know, it's not just add more caffeine. Like, that works a little bit. And yes, I will leverage caffeine to do that, but it's not a like that's not the silver bullet. There are times where I'm like, "Nope, adding caffeine right now is going to make me tired faster. Uh, you know, I'll just be more like probably more anxious, but not any more alert.

So, don't do it." Not only that, I've learned over the past couple years, uh, unfortunately, or I've fortunately I've learned this that, um, I use like I have a a big problem with caffeine. like I use too much caffeine and um I could like I could have 200 milligrams of caffeine and go to sleep and I what I didn't know about this and I actually had to go to a doctor for sleep. Um and I would would tell them like hey like I have a lot of caffeine but like not really an issue because like I can always fall asleep. They were like, "Yeah, the problem is that when you have caffeine in your body and you're trying to sleep, the quality of your sleep is very poor. So that means you start the next day, you're completely like you feel like you're completely underslept, and then you repeat the process." And I'm like, "Okay, yep." Like I've been doing that for over a decade straight.

H um that's a problem. So I've had to dial back my caffeine. and I try to finish my caffeine earlier in the day. Um, that kind of thing. But yeah, like it's not, like I said, you have to listen to your body. Like if I'm getting tired, it's not just slap more caffeine in. Um, but yeah, overall, I think that's what I have to say about productivity. There's a lot of random stuff. There you go. Um, I just hope people don't fall into the trap of like like a productivity trap where you're just saying like I'm doing things and I'm being productive, but like if you didn't really align it with what your goals are, then are you just being busy? Like busy and productive are not the same thing. I probably should have said that right at the beginning of this and then shortened the video to about 5 seconds.

But I hope you enjoyed. Uh, I want to remind folks that if you have questions you want answered, leave them below in the comments or go to codemute.com. You can submit your questions anonymously that way. And then I told you I would remind you again, but I have a couple of other YouTube channels. I have Devleer, which is my car.net and AI programming tutorials. I have Devleer path to tech, which is where I do my resume reviews, and I'll have some interview content there as well. And then I have the Dev Leader podcast which is interviews with other software engineers. Uh they often share their career journeys and stuff like that. So you can see, you know, then there's people you might see them on YouTube and you're like, "Hey, like I how did they get to where they are?" And they share. I think it's really cool.

And I also do live streams on that channel as well, which is the Dev Leader podcast. That's 700 p.m. Pacific every Monday, which is tonight. That's in 1 hour and 15 minutes. So, unfortunately, by the time you're watching this, this stream will have passed, but you can join the next one. So, thank you so much for being here, and I will see you next time. Take care.