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I work as a freelancer from home, so my answer might be less interesting to people at an office, but I've found that at home I'm mostly just doing the things I
by Alacart 9y ago
I work as a freelancer from home, so my answer might be less interesting to people at an office, but I've found that at home I'm mostly just doing the things I wanted to do at the office when I worked in one, but felt uncomfortable doing there. These include:
Taking short (15 - 30 mins max) naps if and when I need them, which pretty dramatically helps me creatively problem solve.
Going for a long-ish walk outside. This is by far the absolute best thing I've added to my days. I feel more energized after, I mentally and emotionally am much happier, and physically it made me slightly fitter. Plus it helps relieve some of the problems I know I'm developing sitting all day.
Podcasts. This one I only do when I'm taking a break, I can't focus and get into a flow listening to other people talk about interesting topics. Awesome for those walks though.
Chat with other developers and friends on slack or some other messenger. Usually at some point during the day I'll have a 15 minute flurry of messages with a developer friend about some side project or something we think is cool.
And finally, this one is half work half fun, but I'll research something I think is cool or would be useful. Might be a service, framework, product, methodology, anything at all. I probably spend an hour or so of my work day, every other day, on researching something that's not an absolute necessity to the work, but might benefit it. In some cases it's paid off big time. Mostly though it just keeps me happy, interested, and hopefully a little sharper.
- swah 9y ago> Going for a long-ish walk outside. Do you have a real objective on those walks (ie getting groceries, lunch) ? I like walking with non-gym clothes but only when I'm actually doing something in the way...
- Alacart 9y agoNo, usually that lessens my enjoyment actually. The point for me is to get outside and just enjoy being there, and being a little bit active, not to pack another objective onto my to do list. I'll often make a small coffee and sip that while I listen to a podcast, which could be a business or programming podcast, something like freakonomics, or just entertainment like 'How did this get made?'. On the way back I might stop and pick up a few groceries or something though. I can see how my way do the opposite for some people though, where the mental pressure valve for them is released by getting something else on their to do list done.
- xxSparkleSxx 9y agoI just walk around the office park I'm in at least once a day. No objective except to listen to music and stretch my legs. Noticed a lot of my pants were getting tighter 6 months ago and after several months of daily walks things are back to normal.
- magic_beans 9y agoIt can be very pleasant to take a long walk with no objective. Try it some time.
- jetti 9y agoI am like you, I don't like walking without an objective. When working from home, though, I will take breaks and take my dogs for a walk which is great for everybody involved.
- smoe 9y agoI usually actively listen to some new music or just think about a variety of topics while I walk around the neighborhood. So for me it's less about the walking but getting away from the computer/internet and just don't bother about work related things.
- frlnBorg 9y agoCould talking to other developers about personal side projects constitute your company claiming ownership of the intellectual property?
- Alacart 9y agoNo, as I mentioned, I'm a freelancer. Intellectual property for any project is strictly defined in the contract for that project. I'm also operating on my own equipment, as a separate entity, on my own property. Not to mention that clients are actually not allowed to get to specific with when or how I do my work exactly, without breaking some Canadian (and I suspect American), rules related to distinguishing contractors from employees.
- rnprince 9y agoCould you elaborate on defining the intellectual property in your contracts? I've had questions about how to do this correctly recently while negotiating one of my first independent contractor agreements.
- trjordan 9y agoNo. If you follow the letter of the contract, most IP assignments claim everything their employees do, but practically, that's just because it's impossible to write a contract that says "everything you do for your job, nothing that you don't". The primary driver is that you don't want to get into litigating how much time your salaried employees work. So most employers will tacitly ignore side projects, only coming after devs who write code that steals users or shifts revenue from their customers to a project that a dev claims to own. And that's pretty rare.
- codesternews 9y agoAny podcast can you recommend?
- Alacart 9y agoDepends on what you're interested in. For programming: -Software engineering daily & the other less frequent version -the changelog -shoptalk (mainly frontend) -twenty percent time (mainly Laravel?) -syntax (new show) -full stack radio -does not compute (Would love some recommendations for more!) Startups/Bootstrapping/Business: -Indie hackers -Tim Ferris (some episodes) -Startups for the rest of us -Mixergy Startup Stories -The pitch -DFJ ETL (Stanford entrepreneurship podcast) - How I built this For life and interesting topics: - Tim Ferris - Freakonomics - Planet Money - 99% invisible (haven't listened to much, but hear it's very good) - Between World's (haven't listened to it much yet) For entertainment: - How did this get made? (hilarious reviews of bad movies by a group of comedians with various guest comedians) - Bill Burr (Like having a chat with your funniest friend that you go way back with)