Once you get a job, it’s easy to get stuck into trading your time for a paycheck. You take the commute, get into the office, brew your coffee, take it to your desk, sit down, and start tapping.
Sometimes, there might be a meeting here and there, a debate with your fellow developers over a module or implementation.
You end your day by going home, going to sleep, and then waking up to do it all over again.
It sounds monotonous. But you convinced yourself otherwise.
Because work is part of life — just like bills, rent, utilities, groceries, and every other little thing in life that chips away at your paycheck.
Then one day, you stare at your reflection and asking life’s ultimate question: is this it?
Here are 5 signs that you’re wasting your life as a developer, the symptoms and how to remedy it.
1. You’ve forgotten your dreams
Remember that game you were supposed to make? Or that killer app idea you had? Whatever happened to them?
It’s easy to forget your dreams, especially once you start earning money through your dev job. But beyond the paycheck, why did you want to become a developer?
A majority of software development work involves translating ideas into a digitized format. It’s a skill that involves understanding and connecting the nuances of programming languages. Getting a day job helps us develop and grow the knowledge required to make the parts and stich it all together.
It’s easy to get lost in work, to put your dreams on the sideline and leave it where you left it. Ignoring your dreams can lead to the following:
- a growing sense of dread and/or weariness towards waking up in the morning.
- a growing dissatisfaction towards life in general
- a feeling of clashed priorities and internal conflict that you can’t quite put your finger on it
- a general lack of or sense of fulfillment in your life
Solution: write down all your dreams and pick your top 5
“The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
― Roy T. Bennett
Go full Warren Buffett on it.
Realign yourself with a purpose that matters to you. When you write down all your dreams, you let your brain unravel what’s in your head. It lets you figure out what you truly want.
Arrange your dreams in the order of most importance and Jira-style it with sprints and milestones. You’re a software developer. You’ve already got an unfair advantage over all the other dreamers out there that don’t know how to create.
So use it rather than waste it.
2. Your projects are boring
When you start a new job, everything is bright and shiny. However, after a few years, or even within months, things slip into a routine. Or you’ve been doing the same tasks for the past eight weeks with no end in sight.
