I’m sure that there are lots of people reading this who found last night’s election results to be less than desirable. (If you’re not one of them, congrats.)
They’re mad. At the same time, though, they’re tired.
They’re tired because they’ve been pushing back for so long, only to see all that pushback get crushed by outside forces that were unfortunately a lot stronger.
Motivation may seem hard to keep, given all that. I don’t have all the answers right now. Nobody does. But I do know this: At some point last night, realizing that the night might not exactly go the direction I personally expected, I turned off the TV and closed the mainstream news websites that had been filling my feed.
I opened up a code window, and started working on some nagging bugs in the redesign I’m working on. Within an hour, I fixed two of the biggest nags I had been facing—both involving some pretty messy logic. I always find this to be a great way to solve code problems: If something is really broken, set it aside and pick it back up later. Sometimes, yak-shaving is simply worth it.
This code was admittedly trying to do something complex, and when it was busted I could not for the life of me figure it out. It was just not correctly loading at all in some cases, and in others, it was glitching out in a way that looked wrong. But in the midst of all the heart-wrenching drama, I worked on a bit of refactoring, and the result now works as one would expect.
(Time for the next bug, I guess.)
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(via Ultra-lab/Flickr)
Often, bug fixes go faster when you’ve gotten some distance from the problem, because you get a fresh perspective that can open you up to new ideas or different ways of thinking. You’re able to turn around and fix the problem later.
Of course, depending on your code base and how many collaborators you have, other things might break before you get a chance to fix the bug.
But on the other hand, now might be an opportunity to focus on what you can control, and what you can build from. This can take many forms. Maybe now is the time for creative endeavors you’ve been leaving off to the side. Maybe this is the moment to start focusing on clearing out room on your never-ending to-do list.
I don’t pledge to have all the answers here, but I do think there is something to scaling down your ambitions and your focus onto the basic tools you have at your disposal.
It may also be the time to lean on your community and the network of people around you. They’re still there, and will be there for you, no matter what is happening far away.
If things didn’t go your way last night, you’re allowed to be mad or disappointed. But you should also allow yourself room for white space. It is not healthy to focus on an unsolvable problem for hours or weeks on end, while not allowing yourself time to recharge or gain alternative perspectives. I’m not saying that this is a problem that you will be able to solve tomorrow or even next week. Or that it’s one you can or should ignore.
But starting from a point of knowing what you can control and building from there is going to lead to better bug fixes in the end.
Anyway, let’s talk about something else for a while. We’re pretty good at that.
White-Spaced Links
It looks like there might be some gas to those rumors that Qualcomm (or at least someone) might be buying Intel, in part because of the belief that Intel is a too-big-to-fail company. That’s the word according to Semafor.
Anyway, let’s see what Jesse Welles has to say about all this.
The history of a word I assume a lot of people were saying last night, for different reasons.
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Find this one an interesting read? Share it with a pal. And if you’re feeling stressed right now, may you find your bug-fixing endeavor in the coming days.
