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How to get motivated to code?

Nandini S Hinduja on December 02, 2023

As a software developer, we all face times of procrastination which are mainly caused by various road-blockers which I discussed over here. So what...

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Ingo Steinke, web developer • Dec 2 '23

The daily standup

... has often been counter-productive for me and my coworkers, interrupting everyone from doing their work, taking extra time and mental load to prepare what to say, and afterwards everyone walks to the kitchen before focusing on their work again half an hour later. But in an ideal world, daily standups should be a positive and productive ritual. Product managers are quite similar: helpful when they are good, counter-productive when they aren't. Deadlines can motivate people or cause panic and code block. It all depends.

People [...] working and coding

It depends as well. Often I felt less distracted and annoyed when working from home, but the situation turns around when I have sat at my desk alone for too long, then I enjoy going into an office, café, library, coworking space etc.

Self-assigned tasks: When I assign a task to myself, that is when I choose my own task, something that I myself proposed to do, I feel more motivated to do it

100% agree!

What else motivates me to code?

flow: when things work without counterintuitive errors or unexpected problems
results: when there is progress, step by step, especially visually, which is why I love frontend
appreciation: getting positive feedback for my work from happy customers
ideas: unexpected inspiration for improvements or fixes. I often got that at meetups and conference hall talks
scarcity: when I rarely had the opportunity to sit down and focus on my work, like when there are too many meetings at work, or when I fell ill or had to spend a lot of time caring for others
community: discussions and articles like your post,

so thanks for sharing!

fasilu • Dec 2 '23

Nice bro

Nandini S Hinduja • Dec 2 '23

hi, thanks for your comment, it was really insightful and helpful!

Paramanantham Harrison • Dec 3 '23

Instead of motivating to code, motivate yourself to solve a user’s problem.

Ask the objective of what you do from the product managers always. Don’t take a task, rather take up the goal. Then coding becomes secondary, the problem statement will motivate you towards solving it
Learn the concepts rather than syntax of programming languages. Now with AI, it’s even more important. Often demotivation comes due to fatigue in too many things to learn. But do we need to learn all the frameworks? No, for example, an API request and response model is same regardless of the code, language or framework.
Stay healthy physically and mentally to take care of long marathon in this career 😉

James • Dec 3 '23

1,000% this. Solve the problem. And always remember: if you can solve a problem a user faces, if you can make their working life easier (for example) not only did you actually provide value... you are the only one there who can.

To that user you're a hero whether they acknowledge it or not.

And celebrate the small win(s).

It's easy for you. It's NOT for the user.

Nandini S Hinduja • Dec 3 '23

true!

Nandini S Hinduja • Dec 3 '23

true, thanks for your insights!

Fyodor • Dec 2 '23

Honestly speaking, almost all of that is just provocatively wrong 🤦‍♂️ (which might be not intentional so I’ll avoid judging here), these [external] kinds of motivation don’t last long and lead to burnout and depression. You need to either find some kind of internal motivation, or change what you’re doing.

Nandini S Hinduja • Dec 3 '23

okay, thanks for your insights!

Oscar • Dec 3 '23

I enjoy feeling like I accomplished something at the end of the day, and it gives my life a little bit more of a meaning outside of traditional academic accomplishments.

If I find myself procrastinating, I just remind myself of that!