Its all working so now I can chill

Question

Most software houses I have been at have this attitude about their work. Get it done quick and move on. For programmers I find that the chill time is time that can be used to either improve infrastructure, refactor some old code or learn a new language.

I would like to know what your throughts about 'chill time' if its the right attitude at all, and if so what to do with it. Is this sort of chilling helpful for a programmer, what are things you do with your own chill time if you adopt this approach to work.

Answer 1

You need chill time if you've just been working 60-80 hour weeks. Unfortunately, the way the salaried job market is it more a minimum of 40 hours, with the max going to whatever ridiculous amount needed to get the job done. Chill time is good for rebalancing yourself, otherwise you would go crazy.

Answer 2

Im doing my chill time right now, by studying stuff , refactoring my code, starting on some new ideas, mentoring newbies, and of-course chilling. Its really a great time to reduce the clutter in your code as well as your desk. Most businesses other than softwares have an off-seasons. I feel its a must, in order to re-evaluate and re-invent yourself.

Answer 3

If you are anything like me, you spend 90% of your time writing about 5% of the code, and the 10% of the time writing the other 95% of the code. The 5% of the code you spend so much time on is the 'new' stuff, things you never did before or have had to solve a particularly awkward problem.

When you get the solutions to the 5% of the code that causes problems, you often have at the back of your mind "Man I could use that to do X in that old project much better this time" but don't have the time to do it.

So yes, most of my 'downtime' is spent tidying up older code with more elegant solutions that I have just learnt about in my latest project. I never get time for chilling as such.... but I do work in Sweden which means there is a MANDATORY coffee break at 9am every day for around 45 minutes which at least allows me to reconnect with the real world and my colleagues :)