Bad Habits Every Developer Should Quit

Building a career as a developer is a pretty good choice. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that software developer jobs will grow 17% between 2014 and 2024 — a lot more faster than the average rate of other professions.
However, like any other profession, being a developer comes with some bad habits that develop over the years. Here are some of the habits and developers can break some of these habits.
Not going outside during breaks
A lot of developers tend to work very hard, to ensure that they get the right build. It’s also no surprise to hear that developers especially those who work remotely, that they haven’t been outside for weeks. They tend to always stay inside and work their lives away.
While you need to work really hard this behavior pattern is harmful to your overall physical and mental health. You would always end up experiencing fatigue, a constant feeling of being sick and depression.
There are ways to manage this. After sitting on your desk, using your mental brainpower and working for hours,during your lunch breaks, instead of ordering food online and still eating at the same desk. Get up and go outside, take a walk to your favorite restaurant and get your lunch. This allows you to get a bit of exercise and plenty of sunlight, that way too, you are taking a break from everything.
Taking Programming As An Only Hobby
For a lot of developers, coding is basically their whole life. They breathe and live software development. There’s a massive growing tech community for developers, so it’s pretty understandable why they would want to do it all day.
While developers can’t really be blamed for thinking this way. Dev jobs are constantly coming out with new solutions and there’s a need to stay on top of it. This gets really bad because after long days or weeks, you start to resent the fact that you will have to code. Even so much as starting to hate it at your job.
Try to stop coding at home when you can and try out other things. You can pick up any new hobby, interest or a totally new field. Try to do something new you haven’t done before each day. Try out cooking a different recipe, gaming or going karaoke. Learn something fun.
Being Too Comfortable
It gets to a point in a developers life where you are constantly working with the same framework/language/etc and you start to go downwards in terms of learning new things. This tends to happen when:
- You or your employer don’t require you to learn anything new (legacy projects)
- You are more focused on hitting extreme deadlines
- Don’t have a desire to keep pushing yourself.
The tech industry is one that requires you to constantly keep learning, even if you are unsure that is where you want to go. Being in your comfort zone can make you to become more lazy, less motivated or even less qualified in the future.
You need to find a balance. The idea of becoming really skilled in a language or framework is extremely valuable. With the addition of new standards for computers/languages/web, if you fall behind than you risk your job. Take some time to experiment with new technologies on whatever you are working with. Even if it is minor, remember that you are here to solve problems, if you don’t know everything, that’s okay.
I know there are a lot more issues and bad habits every developer goes through, they are a tough bunch, I would say. What are some other issues you deal with as a developer or bad habits you think you need to break? We would love to know all about it in the comments.
