Discipline is about being aware of your own counterproductive tendencies and being willing to do things that aren't entirely comfortable or natural to you in or

Discipline is about being aware of your own counterproductive tendencies and being willing to do things that aren't entirely comfortable or natural to you in order to be productive. For instance, I have one colleague who has a tendency to perfectionism, and will spend months tracking down every tiny possible corner case that we're never going to hit, in a small low-priority feature in a CRUD app that wouldn't destroy anyone's lives if it went down for a week. For him, discipline means checking himself frequently and asking what the actual ROI is of where he's about to spend his time. I have another coworker who loves to start new projects but getting him to finish them is worse than pulling teeth. For him, discipline is about follow-through. My own job happens to include a lot of responsibilities other than programming. For me, some days discipline is about letting the Slack conversations around the other projects that I'm responsible for and anxious about slide for an hour or two so I can get in a little flow time with the code. Other days it's about putting down the fun coding project so I can make sure someone else's project doesn't go off the rails. Discipline is different for each person, and it starts with self-awareness - which is the sort of trait that will serve you well in other ways - both in life in general and in any career.