Letter from a Programmer in a Time of Pandemic

A fellow programmer sends her well wishes and advice for self care in these trying times.

📝 Dear Programmer,

First of all, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!🎄 I hope you are all in good health and enjoying time with your loved ones. 😍

This time I want to share with you some very important things that we tend to set aside. I’ve seen close friends getting sick and having to care for their health for working in excess without rest and having a poor work-life balance. Let’s talk a little about this!

👩‍🎓 Our Professional Life

First of all, let’s start with our professional preparation. We should constantly and continuously improve ourselves everyday to be a better version of ourselves tomorrow. For some, this meant jumping from a totally non-technological career to programming. CONGRATULATIONS! This is a brave decision! For others, it has been a period of constant growth in the software area, and I want to tell you that it’s perfect. Let’s get the positive out of the negative and never let the words “I can’t” beat us.

But what should we take into consideration on this part?

• Know that you need to set a schedule.
• Know that an important part of any good professional development is REST.
• Remember that you need to establish goals, but never forget to include in them that you have a personal life that you must also grow and support. I recommend that you read this article for more detail.
• Sometimes we tend to forget that health is our most important asset and, if we take care of it, everything else grows together.

👩‍🔬 Let’s Take Care of our Health

Everything I said above is just in place so that we take care of our health, take breaks, read books that we like! Being in the middle of a pandemic, it’s normal to have symptoms of anxiety or some other health problems aside from COVID-19, and that is why we have to take care of ourselves twice as much as in normal times.

For Example, How Do I Rest?

• Watch a TV series or a movie! But hey!! I turn off the monitor because I finished working for today!!! 🤣🤣
• Let’s maintain social distance, but if you have the opportunity to go outdoors taking the necessary measures, just GO!!!
• Do something different. For example, I like to draw. You can do exercises or whatever else you like—the point is to disconnect. Hasn’t it happened to you that when you have a programming error, sometimes you don’t find the solution and you just rest a little and in an instant you already have the solution? YES, THANK YOU, that’s called fatigue! 🤦‍♀️ And that’s why we need to rest! 💁‍♀️

Don’t forget your mental health !!

Love!!! ❤️ Express love to your loved ones and yourself too! Do something that you’ve gone a long time without doing and that makes you feel happy. Repair your room, your house, your workspace!! It’s exciting!!!

Thanks for reading, I hope you continue to grow as a professional every day, study and prepare as much as you can, without forgetting that your health is part of it!! Enjoy the challenge of your day!

I invite you to comment in this post what techniques you use to get out of the routine a bit, to relax! They can be books or whatever it is that allows you to disconnect and come back super renewed to continue programming!

See you next time and Happy New Year! 🙋‍♀️

With love,
Leomaris Reyes