Today Is the Only Day I Don’t Feel Guilty About Not Coding
There are 364 days a year where software developers are supposed to be improving themselves.
If you’re just being, you’re not doing enough. You’re not being enough, and come performance review time you’ll be dinged pretty badly.
You always feel like you need to be doing more.
Learning a new framework.
Practicing algorithms.
Reading blog posts about people who woke up at 5am to refactor their personality.
And then there’s today. Christmas Day. It’s time to take a day off.
Guilt Running in the Background
Most developers carry a low-level guilt at all times. It’s not surprising since they are a conscientious bunch. That means when you’re in a meeting you’re still trying to code.
Because if you’re not coding, you should be. If you are coding, you should probably be coding something else.
Even downtime gets monetized in the YouTube “get better be better” period. You know what I mean.
“Passive learning”
“Light reading”
“Keeping sharp”
Taking time to just … stop doesn’t get into it.
Christmas Day Is the Exception
Today feels different.
Nobody expects anything.
Nobody is impressed by productivity.
Nobody is shipping features or reviewing pull requests.
The Slack channels are silent.
Production is frozen.
Even the most aggressive calendar enthusiast has accepted defeat.
For one day, doing nothing isn’t laziness. It’s normal.
Nobody Is Watching
On most days, even when nobody is actually watching, it feels like they are. It’s the standup culture that makes it feel like people are listening and paying attention even though they definitely aren’t (trust me).
There’s always:
Another tutorial bookmarked
Another repo you should probably look at
Another “simple” thing you never got around to learning
Today, none of that matters.
If you don’t code today:
You’re not falling behind
You’re not missing an opportunity
You’re not “wasting potential”
You’re just existing. You’re fine as you are.
It’s Going to be Fine Without You Today
This is important to remember.
The systems will keep running.
The bugs will still be there tomorrow.
The backlog will not mysteriously disappear if you open your laptop.
Software development has a habit of pretending urgency is permanent.
Christmas Day quietly proves it isn’t.
Tomorrow the Guilt Will Return (And That’s Okay)
Let’s be honest.
Tomorrow (or the day after) the familiar feeling will creep back in.
The sense that you should be doing more.
That other people are further ahead.
That you’re somehow late.
That’s normal.
That’s the job.
But today doesn’t belong to that mindset.
Conclusion
If there’s one day a year where you’re allowed to:
Not code
Not learn
Not optimize yourself
Not think about your career
It’s today.
No resolutions.
No roadmaps.
No pretending January will turn you into a different person.
Just a quiet day where not doing anything is enough.
And … breath.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.
The Secret Developer didn’t code anything today. They did write a rant disguised as a blog post though.