DEV Community: Anna Buianova

Improve Your Sleep (as a Developer) 💤

Anna Buianova — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 13:53:46 +0000

In this post, I won't go into details why sleep is important because there is a lot of information about it already. What I would like to do instead is to share my personal experience of improving my sleep quality and schedule.

I was never a great sleeper: it usually takes time for me to fall asleep, and my sleep schedule goes all over the place if I don't work on it. When I have started working remotely with a flexible schedule several years ago, it became even worse. I would get up and fall asleep later and later each day, it would take longer to fall asleep and I felt like I had less time during the day. I tried different things then but wasn't very successful. I didn't end up sleeping through the day and working through the night but I still got up late, and my schedule wasn't consistent.
The situation changed a lot later when I had my daughter. Then I had to get up earlier but it meant even less sleep! And I don't function well on little sleep (I think that most people are like this, but some of us won't admit it)

There is plenty of advice online and in the books on the topic, but I found out it's often hard to follow, and sometimes it's not applicable "as is", so I had to adjust.

I will go through the things that I tried and share if it worked for me or not.

Have a Sleep Schedule

Almost every sleep-related article will tell you to maintain a set schedule even for the weekends. While that could be useful in general, I found out that I feel better if I let myself sleep in when I can, especially if I was sleeping less than needed several days before. One or two days of sleeping in won't ruin my schedule if I follow the other rules.

For me, the total amount of sleep I get during the week is more important than having a rigid schedule, especially if some kind of "emergencies" happen, and I end up sleeping less one of the nights.

I also don't understand how people manage to improve their schedule by just going to bed earlier. I would never be able to fall asleep like this. For me, the first step to "fix" the schedule is always to get up earlier, be a bit sleep-deprived, and then be able to fall asleep earlier.

However, when I already have a more or less consistent schedule, going to bed at the same time works well. I struggle with following this advice strictly, because on some days I may be less tired and sleepy, and I would get bored by going to bed and trying to fall asleep. I'll describe what helps me with this issue in the next section:

Limit Screen Usage Before Sleep

Popular advice is to avoid using devices several hours before sleep. While that could be useful, it's not always possible or easy to do.
I also found out that for me most problems are caused not by the blue light. The bigger problem is when I browse the internet right before sleep. In this case, I'm likely to be distracted from being sleepy by worrying too much (like these days), or I'll get new ideas and become too excited about them.

So what I do is: avoid devices after 11 pm, except for my e-book. It seems easy, but it was already hard enough to make this habit stick. First, I started with 11:10 and then moved the time a little earlier. I also use a simple habit tracker to watch the progress. This way I read for 10-15 minutes and feel sleepy, even if the book is interesting. Exceptions are outstanding fiction books that can still ruin my schedule :D

Limit Caffeine

This one turned out to be crucial for me. I used to drink several cups of coffee a day without realizing that I was caffeine-sensitive. I used to think that I was just a bad sleeper, that's why I wasn't able to fall asleep quickly 🙈

Later, I experimented a bit and found out what amount of caffeinated drinks I can consume harmlessly. Now I have a small coffee at a coffee shop several times a week, but no later than 12 am or 1 pm. An additional benefit from this is that getting a more quality coffee feels like a treat and cheers me up on days when I get up early.
I can also drink a can of Coca-Cola occasionally, especially if I feel sleepy. It has less caffeine than coffee but works better for me in terms of energy. But Cola is addictive for me, so I make sure to limit it as well. Tea contains caffeine too, but it has less impact on me, so I just make sure not to drink strong tea in the evening.

Be Active During the Day

I don't have time and energy for a full workout every day, but even doing a small one (5-20 minutes) makes a difference.

Another important thing is spending time outside, especially in daylight hours. I make sure to take a break in the middle of my working day and take a walk. Sometimes it's hard to get away from the computer, but I try to do it anyway. Such breaks are helpful in several ways: they give our eyes and brain some rest, provide light exposure, and keep us active. All of these improve our sleep.

Keep a Sleep Diary

That's especially useful when figuring out an optimal schedule and the amount of sleep you need.
Initially, I used paper log and electronic tables to track my sleep, but now it's enough to check sleep records in my fitness bracelet app (though it tends to lie and I need to edit the entries)

These were actions to take when attempting to a set sleep schedule in the long term, but

What to do when you can't fall asleep right now?

Do Mental Exercises

Count sheep? That could be boring, and often isn't effective. At some point, I used counting backward or performing arithmetic operations in my head. This works better because, this way, our brain is occupied but not fully engaged in this activity, so it helps to get in the sleepy state.

Another exercise is recalling what happened during the day step by step. This is suitable for kids too, I used this method with my daughter.
A similar thing is planning the next day, but if you are like me, try not to get too excited or worried about it.

Get Up if you're Unable to Sleep for 30 Minutes (or so)

I don't fully understand this advice. Am I supposed to look at the clock from time to time? In general, I avoid it not to worry about the amount of sleep that is left. And even if I'm not able to fall asleep, I'm usually tired and prefer to lie and have rest even if I'm not sleeping. Sometimes I pick up a book and read for 15 minutes or so before attempting to fall asleep again.

However, I think that it's still good advice and works in some cases, like when you're too stressed and uncomfortable. Getting up, doing something else for a brief amount of time, and then going back to bed prevents our brain from getting stuck trying to fall asleep. But I keep this one for exceptional situations.

There are a lot of other things to try, like:

keeping your bedroom dark, cool, and silent
using a sleeping mask and earplugs
wearing wet socks
using a weighted blanket
taking melatonin
having a ritual before sleep
breathing techniques

But I either haven't tried them or thought that describing them from my perspective would be too boring to include in this post.

What about you? Do you use any techniques to make your sleep better?

I would also be grateful for book recommendations on the topic. I've read Peter Spork's book and found it useful. It contains both scientific information behind sleep and practical advice. Unfortunately, this book is not available in English, but you can read it in German or Russian.

Anna still codes

Anna Buianova — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 15:33:09 +0000

Last year in March I shared my story about how I got into development:

Nevertheless, Anna Buianova Coded

Anna Buianova ・ Mar 6 '19

#wecoded #career

This year I still code and do other things related to software development. Here are some of my accomplishments since that time:

with

Ekaterina BarashevaFollow

and the team we organized the first RailsGirls event in Saint Petersburg. It was the second in Russia and the first within the last 5 years. And we are preparing for a new one in April!
started public speaking. I gave a short talk at our RailsGirls event and then a longer one at the Pyladies meetup this year.
I wrote a series at DEV about reading and technical books

Learning to love software development books 💙

Anna Buianova ・ Apr 4 '19

#books #discuss #learning #programming

I started writing more consistently in Russian about it and work-related topics
I continued to learn, as usual :)

I have more technical accomplishments this year too but they seem less noticeable to me comparing to the "brand new" stuff that I did during this time.
I have spent many years in IT already and through these years I was feeling burned out at times. But later I discovered that there are many opportunities to grow in our field besides improving our technical skills. We can teach, write, give talks, and do many other things while still staying technical. Helping others is a great motivation to grow ourselves ✨ It also helps with burnout (as long with other measures, like limiting our working time!)

Happy international women's day! Let's support each other, learn to be more compassionate to others, while not forgetting to be more self-compassionate as well.

What to read to fall in love with math 💚

Anna Buianova — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 18:30:29 +0000

This year I've read several books about mathematics, and I'd like to share my experience with you.

A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley

I assumed this book is about mathematics because its title was translated to Russian as "Think like a mathematician" ("Думай, как математик") But it turned out that it is more about studying subjects and gaining skills effectively.

Many people believe that you need a special kind of brain to be technical, but it's a myth and Barbara educates us to get rid of it.
This idea works the other way too: if you believe that you have a "technical" brain, you still can gain softer skills. And for a successful career, we need both.
The practice is more important than "natural" inclinations. In the beginning, learning a new skill is hard, but when you get better at something, you'll likely to enjoy it more.

Barbara tells the story of her career and it's really inspiring, even though I have a totally different path.

From this book, you'll learn more about how our brain works and how to apply this knowledge.

Barbara has several other books and MOOCs on the topic. Here are the courses:

"Mindshift" is a more career-oriented one, I read it last year and it was great. The book contains a lot of similar ideas to the course, but still, it was fun and useful to read.

The Joy of X, Steven Strogatz

Math is often taught in a boring way, and it demotivates students. Steven Strogatz is sure that it can be taught differently so that people will love math and won't be bored... and they definitely won't come up with the conclusion that they need a special talent to be good at math.

The idea is similar to what I've read in ”Mind for numbers”, but while that book is more about the learning process, ”The Joy of X” is about the math itself.

While reading, you'll recall the topics from basic arithmetic to differential equations and operations on infinite sets. Besides theory, the book has a lot of stories from the past and challenges to think on.

The book is more suitable for recalling math and recreational reading than for serious studying. But, it has a lot of links to other books and resources for further learning.

I have discovered this youtube channel about recreational math from the book. I especially enjoyed the story about Living on a Mobius strip ✨

How to Bake Pi, Eugenia Cheng

In recent years I became interested in more abstract parts of math, like category theory. I had studied some of its concepts at university as a part of our "Mathematical logic" course, but while I was good at most of the math topics, abstract parts of it seemed terrifying and vague. We had no idea how these concepts could be used, so it was hard to study them.

But as functional programming became more and more popular, I gained interest in the topic. "How to bake pi" seemed like a nice introduction to it, so I bought a copy, and wasn't disappointed.

Eugenia uses recipes as a metaphor to explain math concepts. But there is not too much cooking info in the book, for me, recipes seem more like an introduction to the chapters. The book is full of entertaining stories and close to life examples, which makes understanding abstract concepts much easier.

I also appreciate that the author explains why we need math in the first place, and what the category theory is.

After reading this book, I became more curious about the topic. If you've read "Category theory for programmers", please share your impressions.

I'm also interested in what tech books are you currently reading, feel free to share!

Getting more value from reading

Anna Buianova — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:56:26 +0000

In the last part of the “Technical reading“ series, I would like to share what helps me to comprehend and remember the information better.
For me learning from reading to be a better developer feels different from learning for an exam. When reading, I want to use the knowledge as soon as possible, not just reproduce it to pass a test.
But still, I found out that similar techniques can be useful for both of these types of learning. When programming, we memorize many of the concepts naturally while practicing, but there are theoretical concepts to remember too.

While I believe that reading is useful by itself, following the Active Recall principle helps us to learn even better. This principle is opposed to passive reviewing. When just reading and re-reading, we can get an “illusion of competence“. The material seems familiar but we probably won't be able to recall it when necessary.

Here are some techniques that I use:

Take notes

This is a popular one but should be used wisely. Just highlighting lines won't help much. Recalling is more useful, so I try to write the main ideas of a chapter (or part of it) in my own words after reading it.

Answer the questions

Some books contain questions and exercises at the end of each chapter. Obviously, it helps not to skip them. But most of the books don't have such questions, so I usually make them myself. Sometimes I combine this and the previous tip by writing notes as answers to the questions.
Making flashcards is a similar technique, but it seems to be more useful to study for an exam and overkill for self-learning. However, they can be helpful when learning the basics and you can always use them as a reference later.

Discuss what you've read with someone

Even a brief discussion with your partner, friend or an online community will help the knowledge to stick. You also may get new ideas and insights while discussing. I mentioned a book club in my previous post, I have organized one a couple of months ago and while it turned out just 2 of us reading and discussing, it still was a really interesting experience and I got a lot from it.

Research more on the topic

It's useful to get more than one view on the topic. Though I find it inconvenient interrupting to read other sources, I do research more after finishing a chapter. Another approach is to make a list of the most interesting topics or concepts you would like to learn more about and search for more information after finishing a book.

Write about what you've learned

That's a hard one for me! But writing a post will force you to think and research much more. Besides other benefits, like helping others, it'll help you to structure your own knowledge.
Of course, I don't suggest writing about everything you've read about, but if you have some fresh ideas you want to share, don't hesitate.

Don't forget about other learning styles (and practice)

It's a common myth that we learn better when using our preferred learning style, but actually that's not true
As you can guess my favorite way to learn is reading, but when I found out that it's more effective to combine different styles, I started to incorporate more listening and even some video content into my studies. I have hard times concentrating on video, but even though I started to enjoy it.
I have learned about the learning styles from the Barbara Oakley's MOOC “Mindshift“ and her book “A mind for numbers“

Maybe all these actions seem excessive and time-consuming. I don't do all of these for every single book and every single chapter I read. But even using some of these techniques for the most important pieces help.

Do any of these help you as well?

Do you use time-tracking for work or for your personal time?

Anna Buianova — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 14:31:29 +0000

At one of my office jobs, we had a time tracker on our computers that was measuring the time spent at the office, and we needed to spend ~40h/week there. That tracker had a lot of issues, and later the company stopped using it.
At my previous (remote) job, we reported the hours spent on each task, but I was not tracking my time meticulously.

I've recently stumbled upon a Nebulab playbook where they describe pretty strict rules about the time tracking.
E.g. developers need to report separately:

billable time (spent working on clients' projects)
time spent on other tasks like 1:1s, studying, etc
"wasted" time
report if they worked more or less than 8 hours a day.

It seems like a convenient way to bill clients, but I suppose it can cause stress for the developers.

Personally, I see time tracking more as a personal productivity technique. I often use the Pomodoro and sometimes plan my day hour by hour, but always add some buffering time for context switching and unpredictable stuff.

And what are your thoughts on time tracking?

How to read more books 📚

Anna Buianova — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 17:46:00 +0000

[Image credit - pixabay]

In part 1 of these series, I shared my experience on how I've started to read software development books on a regular basis.

Learning to love software development books 💙

Anna Buianova ・ Apr 4 '19

#books #discuss #learning #programming

In this post, I would like to share what helps me to find time and motivation to read.

Find out if you really need it at the moment

Reading technical books requires time and mental energy, especially if the topic is new to you and/or you read in a foreign language. Sometimes it's more valuable to have more practice or incorporate other learning styles in your schedule. Maybe you just have other priorities in life at the moment, and that's ok.

If you choose to start reading more:

Set a quantifiable goal

The first thing that worked for me was setting a goal. First, it was 10 pages a day. That's not much, but still, you can read a book in 1 to 2 months this way, which already brings a lot of value. Even 5 pages a day will make a difference.

Article No Longer Available

Though I admit that it usually takes me more than 5 minutes to read and comprehend 5 pages. You can also use a time goal, e.g. 30 minutes a day, it will allow having a more predictable schedule.

Schedule a specific time to read

I found that it's most effective for me to read in the morning before starting to work. However, it affects my productivity during the day, I can achieve more if I start working right after finishing my morning routine without reading. But sometimes it's still worth it, I try to alter my schedule a bit every once a while.

Many people find it convenient to read while commuting or when they have small pieces of time, like while waiting in a queue. Personally, I find it much harder to concentrate in such circumstances, so I prefer reading books by the computer. This way it's easier to focus, take notes or try out the code. When I have several spare minutes, I'll rather read a blog post. Sometimes I can only afford to read in a distracting environment or right before sleep, and it's still better than nothing.

Participate in a book club

It may be hard to find a relevant one or organize it. But if you do, it will be a huge motivation to keep reading. Discussing helps a lot with comprehension and remembering what you've read.

Track the books you've read

I like keeping the lists of books I've read and that I plan to read, it kind of helps me to read more.
I still can't choose between Goodreads and Livelib [ru], and use both of them.

Please, share what helps you to read tech books.

Joining the DEV team ✅

Anna Buianova — Wed, 15 May 2019 18:33:14 +0000

Hey! If you follow the DEV repository news closely, you may have noticed that I've been a part of the DEV team for a while now
Finally, it's time to introduce myself!

I'm a software developer from Northwest Russia, and I've been working in the industry for a decent amount of time already (since 2007).
I started as a full stack developer (php backend) but switched to Ruby a couple of years later (I love Ruby 💗).

At DEV I'm mostly focusing on refactoring, optimizations and overall code quality, however, I work on other things too.
It's a great experience to work on the opensource project fulltime. I would like to help others to contribute to the DEV codebase too. For now, you can join me on my ActiveJob campaign if you're interested.

I'm passionate about lifelong learning, programming and helping others to learn and grow. I'm also interested in writing and sharing my knowledge which I plan to do more of right here on DEV.
Being a part of the DEV team aligns well with my values and helps me to achieve my goals. I hope to bring value back to the community.

P.S. I have opened my DEV inbox, and I'm available for a quick chat on the dev topics.

Learning to love software development books 💙

Anna Buianova — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 15:34:54 +0000

I have always loved to read, but my experience with technical books is more complicated than with other kinds of reading.

When I first started to code, I found reading programming books boring. It seemed like many of them were just repeating documentation.
I was mostly learning by practicing then: reading and writing code, googling and reading language documentation. I still read some books on software development every once a while, but I tended to choose the more "stable" and general-purpose ones, like "Code Complete", "The Mythical Man-Month" or "Joel on Software" (which are great). I thought that most of the books will get outdated soon, so I haven't read any books on the languages I used.
Several years and jobs passed, but I was still mostly learning by coding on the job, reading blog posts, and working on my pet projects.

Later, I had a very busy couple of years: maternity leave + part-time work, then full-time work + learning to drive. When I was able to return to a more steady schedule, I gained a great will to learn and fill blanks in my knowledge, but still hadn't much spare time to learn.

Around that time I stumbled upon a Sandi Metz's book "Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby". I decided that reading will be a nice way to complement my professional life. It took me a long time to finish the book (like 3 months :D), though it is really interesting. After reading POODR and doing some research I realized that actually there are many great books that don't get outdated instantaneously. Later I've built a habit and started reading much faster (which is a topic for another post I'm working on).

What I like about the books is: they provide structured knowledge. You don't need to search for the information on the topic each time. If you have a spare half an hour or even less, you can just return to the book and start reading. Over time you will notice how much knowledge you've got.

I found reading highly effective when accompanied by practice at work. It helped me to fill a lot of blanks in my knowledge and even gain more confidence. I would definitely advise my previous self to start reading tech books earlier in my career.

What about you? Do you see reading software development books as an effective way to learn?

Nevertheless, Anna Buianova Coded

Anna Buianova — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 13:51:38 +0000

Hey 👋

I'll use #SheCoded 2019 as an excuse to tell the story about how I had started coding.

When I was a child I hadn't any dreams of who I want to become, sadly. I have never written programs in Basic for Spectrum or did any similar stuff like some of my colleagues did.
My family got the computer in the late '90s when I was about 11 y.o. But I wasn't interested much in it then, albeit I enjoyed playing games once a while. Later, as I got access to the internet, I gained much more interest. The possibilities fascinated me, but still, I was just a user.

As for programming, we had Pascal lessons at high school. We were creating simple programs but had no understanding of how they could be applied to real life. Now I think that one of the biggest possible flaws of the education is detachment from reality.

I finished school at 16 and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. The default path was to enter the university, but I still had to choose one and a specialty. I was thinking about "something technical" (I somehow thought it was cool). With my test results, I could afford most of the specialties at the local university, so I've chosen "Computer Systems and Networks", cause it just seemed to be a nice one 🤷🏻

At the university, we had several programming courses like C, C++, and Assembly. At that time I used to think that "real" programming was too hard for me. It seemed to be not like what we had studied. We also had to learn a lot of outdated stuff at the uni, but I think it was still useful. At least I got the basic knowledge. I also suspect that I could have taken more of my studies if I had studied better. But I still was not aware that I'll need this in life.
Things changed for me when the OOP course started. We had Delphi, so we could use the visual editor to create a form with buttons, write several lines of code, and get a completely usable app. When I saw the result, my interest skyrocketed.

Initially, I was interested in mobile apps development (j2me and Symbian then), but I haven't spent much time learning that kind of programming, because I accidentally got into web development (and I liked it).
After the third year at the university, I started to look for a part-time job and was suddenly offered a trainee position at the local department of the Academy of Science. That doesn't sound impressive, but I was excited to get a real developer job. In the beginning, it was hard to dive into the code without proper knowledge of how the web and the databases work, but it was a good way to start.

Later I had several jobs, changed my primary programming language (from php to ruby), experienced frustration and burnout, found my passion for programming again, reflected a lot on my further goals, but that's another story.

Now when I think that it's impossible to learn something, I recall my first thoughts about programming. It turned out that "real" programming is not impossible and even not necessarily hard if you put effort.

So:

I continued to code in 2019 because

it's interesting
it's a nice way to earn a fair amount of money (no shame for wanting that)
it's a way to interact with smart people
I can build useful stuff for myself and others

I deserve credit for

improving the DEV codebase (and helping others to contribute)
sharing my knowledge

I would like my work/developer/tech community...

to consist of people who are willing to advance their communication skills
to get rid of stereotypes
to include more (and more) girls and women

DEV Community: Anna Buianova

Improve Your Sleep (as a Developer) 💤

Have a Sleep Schedule

Limit Screen Usage Before Sleep

Limit Caffeine

Be Active During the Day

Keep a Sleep Diary

What to do when you can't fall asleep right now?

Do Mental Exercises

Get Up if you're Unable to Sleep for 30 Minutes (or so)

Anna still codes

Nevertheless, Anna Buianova Coded

Anna Buianova ・ Mar 6 '19

Ekaterina BarashevaFollow

Learning to love software development books 💙

Anna Buianova ・ Apr 4 '19

What to read to fall in love with math 💚

A Mind for Numbers, Barbara Oakley

The Joy of X, Steven Strogatz

How to Bake Pi, Eugenia Cheng

Getting more value from reading

Take notes

Answer the questions

Discuss what you've read with someone

Research more on the topic

Write about what you've learned

Don't forget about other learning styles (and practice)

Do you use time-tracking for work or for your personal time?

How to read more books 📚

Learning to love software development books 💙

Anna Buianova ・ Apr 4 '19

Find out if you really need it at the moment

Set a quantifiable goal

Article No Longer Available

Schedule a specific time to read

Participate in a book club

Track the books you've read

Joining the DEV team ✅

Learning to love software development books 💙

Nevertheless, Anna Buianova Coded

I continued to code in 2019 because

I deserve credit for

I would like my work/developer/tech community...