Start hacking your mood!

Too many software developers are stopped unnecessarily from high performance

Does this sound familiar?

Another morning, another day at work. I go to the office and hear: "Good morning."

I ask: "what's good about it?"

At 9am, we have our stand-up. Another waste of time session that I will use to do my stuff on the side whilst listening in to still understand what's going on and to know when it's my turn to state the obvious:

Yes, I've been busy. Yes, I will continue to be busy today. Yes, I will move my tickets to done. Yes, I will make sure I will add those missing acceptance criteria. No, I have no topics for our retrospective that's coming up in the afternoon.

Fifteen minutes later, the scrum master struggles to bring the unbearable to an end. At last, he succeeds. The only good thing he did so far. And usually the only good thing he does all day. Can't imagine ever working as a scrum master. Are these guys sadists? Or maybe masochistic?

I leave the stand-up and get myself to the coffee machine. My best friend these days. I get the usual. A double espresso, some milk and two spoons of sugar. I know, I should cut back. But what's the point in removing the last bit of fun in the morning? I can have one guilty pleasure after all.

At 10am, we have a townhall. No one has time for anything and we are drowning in work. But, apparently, we have time for a pointless all hands meeting. 130 people are already in the call. What a waste of time AND money.

Let's see how management celebrates themselves today. How the delay in the project is sold as if we were still on track. Most items are green, some are amber. No red statuses. Of course not. This would show their incompetence in planning and executing a project. A waterfall project that is steered in an agile way. What a joke.

The agile coach presents the upcoming priorities and makes an analogy to his hobby. This is ridiculous. As if people couldn't understand what milestones are unless we compare them to steps in a bycicle tour. Have I studied and learned several programming languages to endure this? It's not even 11am.

I can't take it any longer and reach out to a colleague who turns out to be similarly annoyed. We chat and share our dislike for the project. We have a cool technology stack and the challenges in our team are worth taking. But this project has gone from interesting to overwhelming to meanwhile deathmarch. Many teams work on weekends just to hold the artificial deadline of the go-live.

Finally, the meeting is over and I can go back to the coffee machine. I need to gear up for the other annoyances that this day will bring.

Do you know days like these? Do you know thoughts like these?

What might seem like normal thoughts and normal behaviour as protection against the unpleasant circumstances is actually a drain on your energy.

Such thoughts drag you down and keep you from performing at your highest level.

This kind of behaviour, even though pleasurable in the moment, voids you of your energy in the long-term.

Why is that?

Our brain goes into default mode when we are not actively working on something that requires our brain power. This means, your default thinking mode targets the next best thing that comes up and your whole mind is occupied with it.

When you are in a boring meeting and you think that this meeting is killing you if you don't leave anytime soon, this is your biggest problem in that moment. And your brain loves to think about problems. It wants to protect you. It's your survival instinct.

Your body considers it wasteful to use your thinking power for something that doesn't support you (give you food, help with reproduction or increasing your status) because it goes against your own survival. Your body actively goes against using energy for focusing on something that doesn't yield any favorable output for you.

So, let's come back to the boring meeting. Let's say you bump your foot on the table all of a sudden. How important is the boring meeting now? Not that much anymore. Your brain has a new problem that's more pressing and more urgent.

Then you have to sneeze and because you sneeze hard, you wet your pants a little. How much of a problem is your foot that you bumped against the table now?

Then you go to the bathroom to change your underwear and on your way, you slip and fall down. You twist your knee and crack your ankle. How much of a problem is your dirty underwear now?

So, with all those problems, you change your underwear, then limp to your car and drive to the hospital. Whilst waiting in the emergency reception, you get a text from your spouse that there was a shooting at your kid's school. How much of a problem is your knee and ankle now?

Long story short, your brain always focuses on the most pressing thing that's on your mind - and if you don't give it something to be actively busy with.

As a software developer, you need to come up with great solutions at work. And great solutions are much easier found in a peak state, not in a lousy state.

I have written this ebook to give you simple techniques that will help you to enter your peak state easier and faster. The techniques will also help you stay in peak state longer.