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Ask HN: Can't code for hours since it became a job

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I used to be able to code for hours in school.

Since I started working for money, this ability is gone.

The other day we played World of Warcraft in the office, and I realized I spent 4 hours in it without even noticing. It was perfectly easy.

Coding used to be like that. It's not anymore.

One thing that changed is that I was completely careless in school. It really didn't matter to me if I didn't do anything useful all week.

What do you think I should do? Try and change my perception of coding? Should I try and focus less on the reward?

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Perspective: You are complaining about a job that somehow let you play 4 hours of WoW while at work.

He didn't say at work though, he said in the office. Might have been after hours.

Perspective: That complaint sounds totally reasonable to someone like me who gets bored easily.

If my work can't capture my attention and use wisely the time I allocate to my group, it's going to be a negative experience for me.

As alluring the prospect, as someone who has been paid to twiddle their thumbs for a few hours -- it's not fun. It's boring and it feels wasteful.

In other words : I'd rather be at my own house doing nothing than sharing the experience with co-workers, cold lighting, and substantially less alcohol.

What you're facing is resistance. The reason you code has changed, but you're not motivated by the new reason.

Identify what matters to you in life, what you need to do to do it, and then do that. If programming is part of that, move through it. If it's not, do something else.

But don't wait till you "feel like it". that's a crappy driver. Stephen king writes every day, no matter how he feels. That's what separates the amateur from the professional.

A good book on this, is "the war of art" http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/

As someone who started writing code not that long ago, i remember pretty vividly the first time I heard about programming “in anger”. That phrase immediately clicked with me. Working in an environment where expectations matter just feels categorically different.

It took me a while to learn how much distance there is between “it works” and “it doesn’t break”. When i was first learning to code the goal was “it works”. When i started getting paid to write software the goal became “it doesn’t break”, which slowed down my velocity a lot, which was discouraging.

Eventually “it doesn’t break” becomes the norm and you get faster and more comfortable. It just takes time.

"Son, there's a reason they call it 'work' and not 'blowjob'."

And that quote is both flippant, and exactly correct.

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1) anxiety, impostor syndrome, uncertainty, vagueness, complexity, open loops, etc etc all conspire to create some analysis paralysis and the general sensation of everything else being more fun that we all know too well [0].

2) Be honest and figure out exactly what it is that is making your focus fall off

3) Start doing Test Driven Development. It's a decent enough habit in general, but for you specific problem it is golden because it a) forces you to define your problems better up front thereby decreasing your anxiety, and b) contains problems requiring less overall focus to complete your tasks.

[0] http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/the-intern...

It feels like this is about motivation/interest rather than anxiety. Your 2) sounds useful but I doubt TDD would help regain lost interest.

Anxiety is a broad word: what is causing the continued disruption, what is it that is causing his brain to seek entertainment elsewhere, why is he taking coding breaks? Genuine disinterest articulates itself a little differently, but misplaced anxiety about solutions will come up as break, break, break, breaks to flow.

For newer devs TDD is about removing obstacles to flow and clarifying action as much as the design/testing benefits. It won't solve genuine disinterest, but look at this threads title... it doesn't say "I find code boring" it says "I can't persist with coding any more".

Just force yourself to get started, without making excuses, and then you'll find yourself in the thick of it again.

I have to do this every Monday.

People change over time. Relationships with activities evolve and change. Over the time span of a decade, there will be periods of more interest and engagement with an activity and periods of less. Life happens and programming or reading or gaming doesn't occur in a vacuum. Some days/weeks/months there's more to be gained from doing, others from not doing.

Vacations, sabbaticals, breaks are good. Though taking one is a luxury not afforded to many people in the world, it is not wrong to grasp an opportunity to do so when it presents itself. Doubling down on burnout doesn't make it go away.

Good luck.

Not every fun hobby is fun as a job. You mentioned the exact reason: when it was just a hobby, it didn't matter if you accomplished anything and you got to decide what you worked on.

I can't tell you how to like something more, but I can tell you that most people don't have fun or fulfilling jobs, and that's OK. The rest of your life might be enjoyable enough that it doesn't matter.

It's also OK if you look for a career change. Just because you loved coding and used to be easily absorbed by it doesn't mean it should be your career.

I've come to the realization the key difference is working code needs to be an order of magnitude more robust than hobby projects. There is a major difference in energy needed to get there. Spending this energy costs and there comes a point where programming becomes taxing instead of recharging.

Take care of your recovery, have outside interests to programming and realize as you age your ability to recover slows down even more, but your abilities also change. Wisdom accumulated along the way make you able to use your energy wisely.

Coding at work is very different than coding for yourself. At work, you need to create code that solves somebody else's problem (that, usually, matters little or not at all to you) and by modyfing an existing code base, using preexisting build tools etc. There's a ton of external constraints and less than ideal circumstances that you need to adhere to.

To me, coding by myself can feel like tending to my own beautiful garden, while coding at a job feels more like working at a landfill.

This, exactly. :)

This might be a controversial answer, but one of the symptoms of adult ADD is the inability to focus on things that don't interest you, even though you may hyperfocus on a specific task or project that you are interested in "like WoW".

The currently available prescriptions for add are extremely effective and even help you take pride and get focus in even menial tasks that previously were nearly impossible.

If it's affecting your work, it's probably worth talking to a psychiatrist.

Given that rewards kill intrinsic motivation, it’s a good idea that you focus on coding for its sake.

I had a short period where I had trouble being productive. It was a combination of technology that I was no longer interested and lack of product vision of the company.

You need to find your drive/motivation. Some programmes are excited by technology - specific programming language or tech like ML/Cloud/OS. Others are creators that want to build things, deliver new features and seeing others benefiting from their work. There are people that code for money, selling their craft for as much as possible. There are even people that are more interested in teaching/mentoring.

When you find out what motivate you. Then it is "just" matter of finding a right place.

Sounds like the overjustification effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect).

It’s clear in my opinion that you don’t like what you do. If you were gratified and enjoyed it you would not have these opinions. I recommend you look into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And determine why you chose this path. Determine if it is indeed gratification that is lacking or something else.

It seems to me you may have never really hit rock bottom and known what it’s like to lack basic requirements.

This seems to me like an existential problem - you find world of Warcraft fun and passable but not Your work. Ask yourself why - not how to fix it. When you know why the action will be clear.

A friend of mine covered a scientific study with a solution to this problem. What it comes down to, is that you shouldn't program for money. Instead, look at it how the money enables you to be a programmer.

https://medium.com/@robwolfpetersen/the-passion-problem-and-...

You can work on your side project, or contribute to open source project(s) that you may use personally or at work. You're lucky to have enough time to play WoW, but you can use that time wisely. Appreciate it and use it for your personal development to help you contribute back to the company!

Find an industry that interests you. Focus on the delivery of your projects. There's more to finishing than just churning out code. You'll get the same reward you used get from hobby coding. Make the financial reward is a side benefit.

There is nothing wrong with you. Your primary motivator is not money, which is actually great for you. You should be involved in something that interests you. Maybe starting a startup would be your thing.

I think the problem is you're just looking at the faraway deadline and getting demotivated. One book that helped me is One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer.

It's called work for a reason!

Be a programmer because you like to write code. The reward is the running software. The salary is the compensation for your time spent working for a company.

Time is much more valuable than money, but society needs you to want money, appreciation and things so you feel it's a reward. :)

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