The best advice for devs isn't technical

February 17, 2026

A big part of what makes someone a great developer is being able to sit at your desk with a rested mind and being able to properly focus on your work while making good decisions in the process. In other words, you need to keep your brain functioning well to produce good quality work.

Technical knowledge is the other part of the equation, but people underestimate how much just being healthy (and happy) in general is important for your career.

Sleep well

A lot of people underestimate how much sleep affects your life. Getting 8 hours of good quality sleep per night will greatly improve your mental health and focus. You'll feel (and be) a lot more productive, happy, and make better decisions. There's probably no other health advice more important than this one. You can't compensate sleep deprivation with anything else.

I target 8 hours of sleep per night with few exceptions. I recently noticed that avoiding caffeine past 14h (2pm) helps me to improve the quality of my sleep.

If you want to learn more on the topic, I greatly recommend the book Why We Sleep. This book is really interesting if you want to understand more about how your brain works and why sleep is so important.

Go outside

Do exercise, outside! Walking and cycling are really good for this, as not only you got do to exercise, but it also keeps you away from screens for some time. Exercise is strongly linked to a better mental health.

See family and friends. Go to church and other social environments. Call a friend for a coffee.

Take care of your mind

People nowadays have short attention spans. Make an intentional effort to fight that and regain a longer attention span and the ability to focus on what you're doing.

Reduce social media, especially those with short vertical videos. In my experience, deleting the phone apps and accessing only on the browser help a lot to access them less often and for less time. This also means less notifications! I also like to use the "airplane mode" of my phone to intentionally be offline for certain periods.

Exercise your mind by doing things that require some effort for longer spans. Read books, they will make you much happier and wiser than using social media. Your attention span will increase with time.

Science says learning new spoken languages is one of the best things you can do to exercise your brain. I personally think the same applies for programming languages. Learn a new programming language different from the ones you're already used to. You'll be exposed to different conventions, different approaches to solve problems, new design patterns, and so on. You'll see how learning new languages will also help you program better in the ones you already know.

Have leisure

Have good rest. Be in nature. Go to the beach. Play a relaxing video game once in a while. Do good things to distract you from work so when you're back you feel rested and are the most happy and productive.