Today we look at using simplicity both in your code at work an in your life and why the two are intertwined. How to bring Occam’s Razor to work to help keep projects from getting out of hand. A better way to look at dead time and why its necessary to allow your mind to rest.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of adventures in dot net. I'm Sean Klibba, your host. And with me are your cohost, Caleb Wells. Hey, y'all. Hey, Wylie.

Going? Yeah. Hey. And What's up, Wylie? Joel and Gilbert.

Speaking. Good. Hey, Joel. I'm just gonna step on everybody this this Friday. Hey, everybody.

Well, you say how it's going. I know it's kinda mixed for me. My son, just recently tested positive. Mhmm. So he's dealing with with, you know, small symptoms.

He's got no taste, no smell, some headaches, and, a little runny nose. So he's only 25. He's not in the house, so I'm I'm not worried about myself or anything like that. He's he lives, out of town. So so 25, he should be, okay.

And so far, he's, you know, got tested like a week ago. So I think things are looking good for him. He'll be okay. Hopefully, he doesn't get infected to other people. So It's it's interesting, this whole COVID 19 thing thing.

Right? I've actually had a sinus infection all week or what feels like a normal sinus infection. And I went to go see my doctor yesterday because, I still have a lingering cough. She couldn't see me. I have to go get tested, which I've already done, but I have to wait for the results to come back before I can actually go see my doctor.

Right. Yeah. My wife had to go in for a procedure as well. She had to go in for a scan, and she had to get a test before she could go in for the scan. Is is it a drive in testing for you guys or because that's what we do.

We just drive It is. Yeah. Yeah. It was for her too. It was out in the parking lot of the hospital.

It only takes a day or 2, you know, to get the results? Well, there's there's 2 different ones here in the US. There's a a full panel that takes 3 to 5 days, and then there's a rapid test that you get back in less than 24 hours. But the panel is supposed to be more accurate. So okay.

Just like what Elon Musk recently did, the rapid one. He took 4 of them. 2 were positive, 2 were negative. So tells you how how So it's the robot of the dust. That's wild.

Yeah. And did he actually have it or not? I think he concluded that he did have it, but so that's why he was not present at that recent launch that they had up to the space station. So Like, is it is it more for false positives or or false negatives? Like, if you if would it would it show you you'd have it?

Yeah. It's false positives. Oh, okay. Yeah. Mhmm.

So Yeah. Alright. Well, enough of that. We should get on to more positive things. Yeah.

Yeah. Bring bring our our guest. And, I'm gonna try the name. Do the best I can. It's Gilham Friara.

Nice work. Nice work. Little English and Portuguese, I guess, kinda mixed together and Yeah. Probably more English. He, he says his name much better than we do.

Of course, I put some some country on it. Gail Ham Ferreia. Thank you for having me. My name is Guilherme Ferreira. There you go.

Yeah. It's good to have you. French accent, Caleb. Yeah. I I can only say, you know, Right?

I can only I I can list some of our our streets down here, Chapatulis, which it does not it's not spelled how it sounds, and Britannia, and, you know, stuff like that. Right? New Orleans is a a unique city. Right? Now let's yep.

Yep. Alright. Cool. Alright. So welcome, Guilherme.

Thank you for having me. Nice to have you here. Yeah. So, why don't you just kinda give us the basics of who you are, and what you do, and how you kinda got to started in development. So familiarize ourselves with you.

Yeah. Sure. As I said, I'm Portuguese, and I have been working in software development for the past 14 years. And I have been in the dotnet space since the beginning. I kind of by by accident, I I went to a to a course that I didn't know a lot, but was about, informatics and technology, and, I fall in love with programming.

And since then, I have been working with .net as a kind of a full stack developer, having roles more about architecture, those kind of things. And, Andrew, one of the reasons that we are today discussing here is because of a personal story that I I have been sharing my my my vision, what I have been living. That is because I I have a chronic disease. That is is that I have to live with it. And that experience has showed me a lot of things that I could change, that I believe that are good to others.

So you've been in dot net for 14 years, you know. Yeah. What's kinda your been your path through there? What kind of things interesting things have you developed? Yeah.

I I start with as web forms developer in the beginning using vb.net, but that was just a few months. Then I I changed the company jobs, and I went to c sharp, and, I really love c sharp. And I have been I have been in working in multiple kinds of things. I started in, in a kind of a consulting role, working in multiple small projects, usually web projects. But my most significant experience is my current one that I have been working in the same product for the past, 8 years.

That is local platform that we are developing. And, I have been working with dot net since 4 dot, whatever, and going through the dot net migration, changing to dotnet.netcore2.13, all those kind of things. But most recently, most of my experiences using APIs built on top of dotnet and using React on the client side. So you're using React Native? You said you were building mobile apps?

No. We we are creating a platform, but is a a platform for web development, but using concepts of low code. We, basically, we deliver a low code solution to others, but we are using React to build our web clients. So when you say low code, can you can you describe what that is? Yeah.

For sure. Low code is a a messy place because you use that term for a lot of things. And most recently, we start learning about things like no code with solutions like, I think that is Webflow and those kind of things. Then we we can see that there's multiple shades in the same color. We can see that it's a kind of a gradient since the no code to Visual Studio and c sharp, having the full power of the technology.

And the the difficult part is to find that that place where you can fit and you where you can help because you you have multiple solutions. Now you have solutions from Microsoft with things like, Power Apps and those kind of things. And all of those things are no code because, basically, the idea is reducing the the concerns that you that developers need to have, in order to create an application. Because, let's face it, it's it's quite strange that every time that someone needs to create a business application, for example, they need to start by creating things like authentication, authorization, logging, access to database, form builders, those kind of things. So the goal of a local platform is to remove that effort from the the developer and make sure that you only focus your talent in the real business problems in bringing value to to the solution.

And there's a lot of kinds of, software developers. For example, I love to create our core stuff. Okay? I like to be nearby the metal and learning about why should I should I use a single weight? Why should I use value tasks?

Why should I use something shiny? But there's the other kind of developer that doesn't like that thing. What they like is to be with the the customer and try to implement what they need. Basically, if they need given business rule is that they they want to to do. And those kind that kind of people, we need to to have solutions for them.

And if there are other kind of developers that prefer to create platforms, that is the case, we should we should try to help each other. That that's my vision of local, but there's a movement going on to to solutions that are really no code. And the goal is simple, is you you don't know how to develop some something, but, for example, you want to create your 1st start up. You have an idea. Why shouldn't I create a a simple web app, for example, without knowing a lot of a lot of things related to software development?

One day, I will need to hire a developer, but today probably isn't that big. No. That's that's a great description of low code. One of the things that you've been focusing on in both your personal and professional life is simplicity. And I I feel like that goes right right in line with your low code approach.

Can you tell us why why focus on simplicity and and and what's driven you in that direction? Yeah. It it's it's basically my personal life has made me to find the value of simplicity. Because as I said, I'm, I have a disease quite rare that can cause me a lot of problems, but is manageable. Okay?

Yeah. I don't have a severe case of that disease. But in the beginning, I have a lot of things that I I need to cope with. A lot of back pain, problems with with multiple parts of my body. I can have problems with my vision, for example.

And as as a developer, what I tried to do was what we like to do is try to find solutions for a problem, searching online, finding patterns, other people coping with that disease, for example, and learning with them. And that's made me understand that I could change things like my diet, to my exercise. All of those things have have a good impact on myself. But there was one thing that I was noticing on myself that was every time that I was facing a moment of stress in my work life, my professional life, all of that back pain was coming back, at me. And I tried to to do the same thing.

I tried to find the the root cause. And I noticed that we this this wasn't just my problem. This is really common in our industry. We you see a lot of people talking about burnout, for example. And it's really common in in the software industry because we we breathe complexity.

It's our day to day job. We we have to be, we are hired to to solve complexity. And that sometimes starts leaking to yourself. You start being affected emotionally. This happens in a moment where I discover the a thing that that is minimalism.

And I start learning about those concepts and trying to apply to a few things in my life. And I I saw the value of that thing, and I tried to bring that to my work life. And this is really a powerful tool because it sometimes it's it's just a mindset thing. You just need to be, always trying to simplify everything. And there are just a few questions that you can apply to everything, and you will find simple solutions.

Because complexity, there's a lot has a lot of problems. You are wasting your talents to deal with complexity. For example, all all of us sure, we know what we is dealing with a legacy solution. We we have a a term for that, and we have bad feelings when we need to to handle that kind of code. And those moments, we are dealing with complexity, and that is, a waste of our time, is a waste of our talent, is a waste of our creativity, is a waste of everything.

And that has an an impact of stress in you. And that sometimes can be causing pain in my case, but in in your case can be burnout, and you don't notice. Only one day, a few months after, you will notice that you are burned out. I used to say that I have an advantage, that I have a kind of a blinky light. That's every time that I am in a that situation, my body will tell me.

Probably, in the case of, one of you guys, when you notice it, it can be too late, and you need to to handle it. And I I really don't believe that burnout can be fight in, a given shot. We tend to say, oh, you need to take vacations. You you need to just slow for slow down for a bit. But that way, you are you are just delaying the everything to come back at you again.

And what I believe is that we should apply a few techniques in every single thing that we know we do to be sure that we keep that level of complexity under control. And it's basically that's the reason why I really love the idea of simplicity and trying to find the value of everything that I bring to my life. So can you give me an example of 1 or 2 of these strategies that you use? Yeah. For sure.

All of us have read online those things about key principle, keep it simple. All of those things have one thing in common. That is questioning the value of everything. You are basically questioning, should I do this or should I have this, for example. And it's the same idea that minimalism has is the idea of questioning, do I really want this?

Do I really like this? This will improve my life. And when you start doing that thing, you will see that you will throw away a lot of things before you start it. K? Because we are we are so in love with finding solutions to complex problems that if someone comes to us and say, I have this problem to to fix.

And if it's challenging, we as, people that love to code, we go for it. And we don't stop to think if there's a better way of or if there's there's really a need to to do that thing. That is one case. Other thing is to be aware of to a few expressions that we tend to use. Things like, for example, when someone in the team says, wouldn't it be cool if we just do this small thing?

K? It's quite common. Someone is programming and someone has an idea, and you are all of you are really happy and you start coding that new idea. But no one has asked the customer if you really need that. And by doing that, you are buying complexity to the future because it's one more thing that we will need to maintain in the future.

Or for example, when someone starts to creating something and starts developing basically with the idea of just in case. I was really good doing that. For example, I want this feature to be, really configured as anyone can change the behavior. This will be in a JSON file somewhere and someone can tweak it, but no one demanded me that thing. I was raising the bar to to maintain that that thing, and I was buying, complexity to the future, basically.

So, usually, finding the simplest thing to do is, most of the times, the best thing to do. That is the idea of let me recall the name of the principle is Occam's razor. Occam's razor is basically the a philosophical principle that says to you that if you if you have 2 options or 2 explanations to something, 2 ideas, usually, the simplest one is the best one. And I really love that. Because if you combine this idea with, for example, DevOps or Agile, you are seeing this the principle in practice is the idea of failing really fast.

It's the idea of going through the simplest one. And when you find if that thing works or doesn't work, you are always winning. Because if you go through the simplest one and it works, perfect. You have a simple solution and it was, really easy to accomplish it. If you go through the simple stone, it doesn't work.

At least you'll even take the time to go through the complex one that can be hiding something nearby the end. And those projects, when you nearby the end, you start finding some roadblock, they bring a lot of complexity, a lot of stress, and a lot of pain. Those are just a few kinds of things that you can do to to to fight it. Yeah. I find keeping things simple is is really beneficial, not only for what you're doing then, but also for what you have to do in the future.

Because if you ever have to ever come back to something, and you need to pick up or remember what it was doing, if you did it simple in the first place, it's gonna be much easier to pick that up and then fix or or modify or do whatever you need to do that old code that you haven't seen for a year or 2 years or 5 years. Yeah. And let's be honest. Today, we see the solutions to things that are really complex. But to be honest, we have tools to deal with all of that complexity and still create simple things.

You can see, for example, searching in Google. Google, to someone that doesn't know a lot of software, seems a simple thing. It's just a small box with a with a button, and, we'll, spit out a few links. But what we are seeing on those cases is an abstraction of that complexity. Basically, the all the complexity of a search engine is abstracted from us.

One good example that I I like to use is that no one needs to know how, car engine works to to drive a car. K? You don't need it. You just need to know how to drive a car. You don't need to know what is inside.

Nowadays, you don't need to know the architecture of your CPU to develop a web application, for example. And you can do a lot of money, without knowing the architecture of the CPU. But a few years ago, you you need to you need to to know it. That is basically abstraction. You you need to go through those simple techniques to build simple things, but but you are basically splitting your complex problem in multiple small problems, and then you start composing them like Lego.

It's basically that. I guess it's about This is oh, go ahead, Y. You you go first. I'm sorry. So so this is interesting, the idea of I mean, I can't tell you how many places I've been where wouldn't it be cool if was almost the way of development after some period in time.

And there are a couple of companies I've been in that were very large, large enough they had an architecture team that kind of sat in the middle, and we did look to what if we did this and tried to make everybody's life easier this way. And so there was some times when that speculative nature was was actually very useful. But when you started using this, how did your coworkers and people, like, feel about this idea of let's not just immediately do these things. Let's see if they're really needed. Let's cut back.

Because sometimes it is kinda, like, almost like you're taking away someone's fun. Yeah. And let's face it. You can't do it alone. Something like that, if you start demanding simplicity from everything, you just seem, crazy guy.

Just always trying to to talk about the same kind of things. But what one thing that I discovered was that in in the agile manifest, there's a principle that is all about simplicity, for example. And people tend to don't know that agile has a few principles, but they are really important. And one of them is the idea that simplicity is is the art of minimizing, the things that you do. Basically, you don't want to do things that you shouldn't do, things that are aren't needed.

And if you work in an agile team that most of the times nowadays, companies tend to work, you can use those those principles to help you. And what is the most important thing that I can recommend is to to promote the idea of finding the feedback as soon as possible. K? That's your first goal. And I I start doing a simple thing.

I start collecting feedback without developing a single line of code. K? Just pen and paper. K? When you when you start trying to to draw a few boxes and trying to create a few mocks of your application or of your PIN points, whatever, and you go to your, stakeholders, your your customer, and you just validate that thing, you will see that sometimes you you will find yourself doing the wrong thing.

And if you create this kind of feeling, you will see that the team will join you to to do those kind of things. And other other cool tip that I can give is the idea of create creating sessions of, pre mortem meetings. What is a pre mortem meeting? It's basically a meeting where you bring everyone in the team to to room. Today, probably a a Zoom meeting, not a physical room.

And you and you start asking to, to everyone that contributed to find that solution or that idea to kill that that thing. K? That's the challenge. And everyone needs to shift their their mind. Everyone should try to attack that thing.

And if you create an environment where, everyone feels safe by doing that Because we tend to say that we like to fail fast, but most of the times, companies don't really like to fail. But the idea is to fail when it's really inexpensive, where when it's really cheap. So if you try to kill something even before you start, it's a win win solution. And sometimes you will see that you just find a few flaws in the the idea, and you just need to do a few tweaks. And that thing can be really powerful, and you can bring your team to think in the in the same way.

It's a cultural thing, but you will see that will take time. But if you you start acting locally, you can start seeing it spread across your your team and your organization. I I believe so. Well, I like that idea of a meeting where you try to kill features. I bet that's I bet that's very odd for people the first time they do it.

Yeah. You there's there's I think that this company inside the Google corporate. That is the X company or something like that. They are basically the moonshot moonshot factory of Google. And there's a I think that is a TED talk or something like that from, one of the leaders.

And he said that the spirit of the the the company is every single day question, how I I'm gonna kill my project today? And people tend to be promoted and have a bonus when they kill the project because they are the those projects are so expensive. For example, creating an autonomous, vehicle. It's really expensive. If you need to kill it, kill it as soon as possible, please.

So you you can create those environments. And don't just say that you like to fail fast because it's a trend, and then it's really good. It it it seems beauty in in your landing page, in your website saying that you fail fast, but you really need to create a culture when people believe that they can do that thing. I think what you're saying about company culture is key. Right?

Because I've I've worked at places where the owner or the boss says they want this feature, and you start asking, well, who's gonna use it, and what's the full functionality, and what's the benefit? And they're like, I just want it. Right? So, yeah, it's that's I think that's a big piece of it. But I think it's a it's a wonderful idea to pursue, right, and to try to build into your culture.

And I think everybody's familiar with Google products that have gotten killed. You know? Things that they used and they loved and really liked, and then then Google just says, that's going away. Yeah. Inbox.

Inbox. I loved Inbox. Why? I I don't forget Google Reader till today. Yep.

Google Reader. Yep. But there's there are other kind of things that we'd most of us didn't listen about them. Things like creating the first, really smart city, I think that was in Canada. There that was a project that is suspended because they start seeing that wasn't viable.

For example, there are other ones, things like, spreading, I think that was network balloons through Africa to to have Internet access global distributed. And those kind of things are really expensive when compared to to Google Reader, for example. But having that culture is I I believe that is really important, not not only in in companies, but even in our lives. When we start seeing that something isn't what we are expecting, as soon that we can escape from that thing, it's a benefit. It's the idea of the sunk cost fallacy that when you invest yourself after a while, you start, going through, even when you don't believe it because you can't accept the the cost that you have already invest.

So it's because of that that I really believe on on those things. I I think a process like that what's really key also is finding the right stakeholders in the room when you're when you're doing that. And, also, a lot of times, instead of trying to kill the feature, I try to just get the client to prioritize. Because, you know, a client will want everything, generally, but what do they want first, you know? And that that that'll give you a bit more of a clue about what what are the true requirements that they actually need.

But I really believe that our our job isn't to to do what our customers want. It's to to do the best solution for their problem even when it's something that they are not asking for. Sometimes that will mean that you need to prove them that they are asking for the wrong thing, and sometimes you can achieve that by doing what you are saying. You can prioritize, and one day, you will be nearby the end of the project. That feature is in the end of the backlog, and there's no more budget for the rest of the project, so that feature isn't done.

There's multiple ways to go through this, but sometimes you need to to be a kind of a politic and, try to to prove the other side that, they don't want that thing that they are asking you to do. We are kind of, in a kind of a strange position because sometimes we are demanded to implement solutions instead of finding solutions to given problem. So we start coding things without even knowing what we are trying to solve. And that puts puts you in, in a strange place where you can really contribute with, with value. That is always the driver to find simplicity.

I just found a new website, killed by google.com. There's a a list of 219 things that Google has killed. Well, then well, then they're doing it right. Right? You know, you're talking about you and both mentioned prioritizing stuff, and it doesn't happen that often, at least not not in my experience.

But if if your client gives you this long list, right, and you're using agile or scrum or something along those lines, and you tell them to prioritize the stuff, and then you tell them, well, this item is gonna take this many story points, and this items could take this many. The ones that they thought were high priority but are gonna take a lot of time, a lot of story points, all of a sudden become less less important. And the longer you go, the less important they can become. So yeah. It's it's always it's always difficult.

Yeah. I had another question related to something you're talking about very early in our talk. So if you take me back for a minute to when you were first discovering this, and you're talking about just very almost, like, scientifically approaching this idea of, well, I'm having back pains, and what's the problem? I'm sure that took, like, a lot of different trial and error to try to uncover that because that's a I mean, if you look at the statistics leaked in America, the percentage of men adult men that have back pain, the numbers are really surprising. And the number of causes, I think, can be pretty large.

One of the things that I was most curious about is you talked about the simplicity. And I was thinking of this on sort of the 2 if you could divide it into 2 halves. 1 is trying to achieve simplicity in the external, the world around you. Try to say, I don't need to do all this. I the solution can be simpler.

And the other one might be viewed as something like simplicity internally. Like, I don't need to engage in all these thoughts or worry about these things and all that. Can you talk about, like, those two halves? And was that really part of your journey, or am I just putting something out there that wasn't really part of what you were discovering? Yeah.

Just just going to the beginning of the question, it was really difficult to to go to a place where I discovered my disease because, for example, I was ignoring the back pain for, 2 years. Okay? And after those 2 years, my wife just made me go to to see a doctor, and they she put in place her power on myself. And and Yep. And that works.

And after knowing after knowing what you are dealing with, because sometimes you don't know the name of the your enemy, it's, it's easier. But going to the the the question of the internal simplicity and the external simplicity, I believe that both are interconnected. Because when you are dealing with a lot of complex things around you, when you are, for example, exposing yourself to things that you don't like, for example, joining to to things that you don't believe or, for example, accepting things that are demanding from you that you don't buy in. Things like, okay. Let's deliver this feature by the Friday.

And you say, yay. Hey. Just because you don't want to be the guy that says no, for example. Those things are, extra external factors that will affect yourself internally. Because one of the things that I work I was noticing on myself was getting back home.

I have a a little daughter, and I was playing with her, but always with a kind of a background thread, thinking on the problem that I left in in the job after, I left. And when you do those kind of things, you will see that you don't give the space to your brain to to rest and to find different solutions. How many times do you go home and in the next day, when you get back to your keyboard, you'll find the solution for something that you fight for for hours in just 5 minutes? That's really a common pattern in our in in our profession. And that's because when you go to sleep, you give the space to your brain to process things and analyze things in a different way.

When you get back to that problem, you start seeing in a different perspective. Okay? It's like, I like to do a small exercise that is, if we close our fist in front of our face and we try to focus it, we will see that everything around will starts blurring because we are really good focusing things. And when you are in a key with a keyboard, with a problem in your screen, and you are just typing and trying to go through it, sometimes you will not see that there's a a door in at your side with a sign saying, hey, go here. You just need to do this thing.

So I really believe that both are interconnected. When you reduce the amount of things that you are exposed and you simplify the things around you, you will see that your inner self will, feel more will will feel more calm, more mindful, more present, and that can pay off in the external things also. Because you start being that guy that is always stressed, that, doesn't recall anything because you when you are juggled with so many things, you start forgetting a lot of things, for example. So I believe that they are interconnected. And by doing one thing, you have the, impact in the other one.

You know, here's something I really like about this, is so often you'll hear people take this other angle, this idea of, oh, you know, you can handle all the complexity if you just maintain your center, maintain this right space inside. Like, there's maybe some magic about the right way to think about things, and then you can face any amount of complexity. And it's all up to you to just manage that between your boundary of the inner and outer world. You're saying something completely different, which I think is spot on. You need to actually tell what's around you what the limits are.

I'm not I'm not going to do this complex feature. I don't think it's necessary. I'm not going to do this commitment to do a feature that shouldn't be done by Friday because I'm only thinking about it through the weekend or whatever. You're actually tied taking a different approach saying, no. It's not all for you to just manage internally.

You have to be able to affect the world around you to help maintain the simplicity. If you deal with those examples that you just gave internally, you will see that by the day that something was supposed to be delivered, you will feel all that stress on that day. Mhmm. And when you say no to something, you are not refusing something. You are not being unprofessional.

You are just giving a chance to the other side to prove you that you are wrong. Okay? I I like to be proven that there's a better solution that were what I was thinking. It's like when you are, for example, giving story points to something, everyone in the team can prove you that you are overestimating something because you are thinking in a complex thing, and there's so much simple solution. So you are just basically being more transparent.

And by doing that, people can work with you and can prove you that you are wrong. So I prefer that way than, just buying problems to the future. And one day I will need to you you are basically delaying the stress. And I don't like that idea. Because or or sometimes you can be causing the stress in the other person.

Because you can be a kind of a really peaceful guy that is a Buddhist and you do meditation and nothing can affect you. But if you do that thing and in the day that you were supposed to deliver something, you don't have it, the other side will feel that distress on their side. And I have a kind of mission statement statement for myself that is I don't like to to create something to the others that I don't like for myself. I don't like to affect others in a way that I don't like to be affected. And when you go through your life with this kind of attitude, I believe that you have positive things, and you can deal with those things in a better way.

Yeah. It's no wonder my best solutions always come to me in the shower right after taking, you know, sleeping for the night. So the nice hot water makes me relax. I'm I've slept, got rest. It's a bathroom effect.

And, you know There's something there's something in the bathroom that can helps. Mhmm. All I wanted to say, once you have that eureka moment or you get that idea, you can look at it and say, oh, but that's so simple. But that's the whole point. Right?

Is getting back version that is reasonable to accomplish. Yeah. I have a question for for you guys. How many times have you been in a situation where you start your morning trying to eat the frog, the worst thing that you have to do on that day, and you probably have, accomplished the task by the end of the day? And probably you have a really bad solution for that thing because you were fighting with a complex thing for 8 hours, for example, and didn't get the space to to look at it with a different angle, for example.

This happens really a lot of a lot of times. K? And sometimes there's solutions for things that doesn't seem obvious, but are really good. For example, one that I really like is I think that is the Houston airport that in the beginning, they they have a lot of complaints related to the the time that the luggage took to to be available to collect. And, for example, you you left the the airplane and you need to pick your luggage and you were just waiting there.

And everyone starts complaining about that. The solution that they found to to that thing, is really smart. And if I tell you, it seems really dumb. Because they couldn't change the the time that the passengers, took to go through the air to the airplane to that place because it was really close. So what they have done was to move the the landings to the other side of the airport, and now you need to walk through all the airports to get to that place.

So when you go to to the place to pick your luggage, it's already there. But the beautiful part of that thing is that when you are walking, you are doing something that you feel that is productive. And when you are staying in place, just waiting, you are bored. So sometimes by looking to things with a different perspective and trying to embrace the problem, don't see the thing as a obstacle, but as part of the solution. You can find really simple things to to do.

Okay. Nobody tell anybody this, but my wife, a lot of times when she's in a drive through, she pulls out, she'll turn right and go around the block so so she doesn't have to wait for the gap and the traffic to turn left. Ah. And that's because, you know, she just want doesn't wanna sit there and wait. She wants to be driving.

And so she'll go all the way around the block to the right rather than just waiting for the opening and then turn left. Oh, yeah. Like, like, if I have I'm at a stoplight and I don't wanna sit there, I'll turn right and go down a few blocks and then come back up because you feel like if you're moving, you're you're getting there sooner or you're making more progress. Absolutely. Yep.

Yeah. I can I can understand that? Also, I kinda get a little bit of I guess it's kind of the other way around. Turn turn right instead of turn left because Australia. But, but, yeah, like, you do get that, anxiety when you have to cross both lines of traffic.

So, yeah, sometimes I'll do that. Go around the block instead. So And, you know, there's also the thing I always wondered. When you see people, like, always in some line or something and everyone is on their cell phones, I always thought, oh, they just, short attention span. They wanna be entertained.

Now I see it in a different light. Maybe everyone just likes to feel productive, and it's just a way to feel like they're actually doing something and not just waiting in line. Yeah. But but that is really it's really dangerous because if you book when you're you're a small kid, you spend a lot of time being bored. Just trying to find something to do, and they didn't have it.

Today, there's a lot of stimulus to to kids. So you don't give the space to your brain to to be imaginative, to to pro settings that you just learned. And I believe that sometimes we we should look to find, moments where we feel, a kind of, in in a boredom, when you feel really bored. For example, that's why I don't know if any of you ever tried the meditation, but meditation tends to be really difficult in the the beginning because when you try to focus on not doing anything or thinking anything, you will see that you are so used to do that thing that your body demands that from you. Because we we can't do those things.

And finding that place where you get the space to to process things is really helpful. And that there's some there's a that thing is a concern that I have, for example, with my daughter. She's growing in a environment where she has Netflix, iPad, and it's it's really easy to to find a distraction. You know, when you're talking about the idea of meditation, I've been thinking about I did it some time ago for a while, and I've been thinking about restarting it. What what do you think about starting with a meditation app versus just pure meditation?

Is an app another form of, being distracted and engaged? Or what, what do you think about that? I believe that it's important to start with an app because there's a kind of misleading concept of meditation. We tend to think that the meditation is not thinking in anything, but it's not that. Meditation is being aware of what you are thinking.

And when you are being guided by someone, it's easier because you can follow their instructions and you will at least in the beginning, you will see that that can put you in a place where you understand what what you are doing. After a while, you can, change your habit to have just a timer, for example. But in the beginning, I really believe that doing those kind of 10 session course that, for example, things like Headspace or Calm have, it's really helpful. I have done those both twice or multiple times after trying to do that alone. It's really helpful.

And because that there's multiple kinds of meditation also. There's multiple kinds of things. Meditation with mantras, or meditation just that where you are just focused on your breathing. All of those things can can help, but being guided is is useful, at least in the beginning. You know?

Self meditation self meditation for somebody with with ADD is a little difficult. So find somebody Here's here's the thing. Guide you. Yeah. I'm Sean.

Right? You know, I I have ADD. I I in my mind, it's all over the place. But especially with COVID, you know, and what we're dealing with right now, I made a commitment to myself a couple of months ago, that I really needed to make it a regular practice. And, I went a little hardcore, and so I'm meditating 1 hour a day.

Oh. Some of it with an app. Some of it just nothing. But the thing is, if you realize that you're not meditating to stop thinking, You're not meditating to be calm all the time. You're not meditating to become a monk.

Right? Meditating is more of just being and just letting your thoughts flow and then letting them keep going. Right? And not being attached to anything in particular. And it's it's made a huge difference for me in the last couple of months.

It really has. So where where do you find that this, I guess, this time and also the space in a house full of kids to to sort of start meditating. Yeah. I do it after we put Gidi into bed. And and I've also had to to train my wife that if I'm sitting in bed with my eyes closed and I'm not under the covers, or if if I if it looks like I'm meditating, then I'm probably meditating.

So so so, you know, let me do my thing. That's awesome. I can do that. So I'm really curious. So you're at the beginning of this, and it's all, like, fresh in your mind.

Like, what, what kinds of benefits or or changes have you seen? I am, less reactive. I I do have more, of a sense of peace in general. I find that there's fewer things that that are triggering me these days. It helps bring, for me, a different perspective to work and life and my wife and my son, right, and even the pandemic.

It's it's funny. Right? You look at it from an outside perspective, you're like, that can't possibly do that much for you. It can't make that big of a difference. Right?

But it's just something with the way that your mind is wired and the way it works that it really does. So I think that I think that's really cool, Caleb. That's that's I mean, hearing those benefits. And it it really to me, it really relates to something Laharen was saying is that Yeah. You know, I've thought about this a lot of times.

I remember being a kid and being bored all the time, and I thought about that so often. It's literally I think a year can go by, and I will not have one single memory being bored, like, not once in an entire year. And it's just what what happened? Where did all that stuff go? You know?

And I you you can tell yourself it's just responsibility or those other things all with something to do, but some of it could just be habits. I think it is habits. Like, I I noticed the other day that every time I get into the lift at work, I pull out my smartphone. I never, like, just stand there, you know. I'm like, there's there's always something within with your phone.

There's always something that you can reach out if you're even got 10 seconds to to be silent, you know. It's so hard to break that habit of dead time isn't wasted time. Yes. You know, it's the same idea of the commute to and from work for people who have the commute. Right?

A lot of people see that as wasted time or dead time. But if you approach it, in in a particular way or look at it in a certain way, it doesn't have to be. Right? Yeah. Reminds me, like, I'm a fast walker because I don't I wanna be here or there.

I don't wanna be in between because that's, you know, wasted time. Right. I am, like, the world's slowest walker. We could literally never hang out. I'm I'm a fast walker.

Well, I was gonna say I'm a fast walker because my dad, he he always was walking fast. As a kid, I had to I had to almost run to keep up with him. Right? So so this brings up an interesting question. Sean, Sean, I shared this idea with you of, like, the idea that dead time is wasted time.

I I know I think that way about it. What do you guys think are some other alternatives about how to think about your dead time? Look at it as mental health time. Right? Time for you to just be.

And I know saying just be sounds very woo woo and or maybe odd, but that's really all it is is not having to do anything, not having to to have this objective, just be there. Yeah. Both mental and physical health, I think. You know, because, you know, you think about a lot of people they're getting into development in their, you know, in their early twenties or things like that. If they're gonna stay in this career, they're gonna be doing it for 40 to 45 years.

And you gotta really take care of your body, and you gotta take care of your brain to be able to do this type of career for that not that length of a time. I I have a suggestion. If you want to be extracted from the the world, but, feeling that you are doing something productive. I recently start doing a puzzle with 1,000 pieces, and I'm not a fan a fan of, puzzles. But I start doing it, after dinner with my wife.

And while you are trying to to find the pieces and those kind of things, you are not thinking about nothing. You are just in that process. It's a kind of manual task where you don't find the the space to think in your work, in your problems. And it's a good way to to start with it. I start doing this because I listen to a podcast from Tim Ferriss, and he had a guest that is, Yuke Shekman, the actor.

And he was describing the the habit of using puzzles to to be a kind of a mindful, thing. And other thing that Yuke Jackman said and related to one thing that you guys were saying, is that he always meditate. I think that is 20 times 20 minutes twice a day. And the idea that she has is that meditation for him is like taking a shower. Okay?

It's 20 minutes that he takes every day because it's something that he needs to to to feel good. It's like brushing our face. It's a task that you have to do every single day. And when you look to it in that way, then it's easier to find the time. 1 hour is really good, but if you start with 10 minutes, for example, creating that habit, sometimes it's enough.

After a while, you start seeing differences. Yeah. You you don't have to to be me. I've been meditating off and on for, like, 5, 10 minutes for years, but I do it every other day or I do it for a month and stuff. And I was like, nope.

This is it. We're doing this. So you don't have to be me. 10 minutes. I'll ramble.

Makes a difference. I think we're also forgetting exercise. You know, that's one of the benefits of, you know, I play softball in the summer and hockey in the winter. Of course, not this year, but, that just gets my mindset out of problem solving and and and development and code, and just enjoy myself, have fun, play any game, spending time with other people. Yeah.

Sure. I think I think that's probably what in a way, it's been one of the best things about COVID. I've actually because I work from home most of the time now, I've actually started doing a lot of just daily exercises and things like that. Things you can't really just do at work. You know, you can't I can't bring dumbbells fixed to my desk and start doing it on my desk at work.

So things like that. So and I think that's that's made a really big difference in my mental health. I think you need a new company policy. Dumbbells a lot. Pull up machines in the in the hole and stuff.

Yeah. And it doesn't mean your coworkers. Yeah. Although there are those. Yeah.

Alright, Gilhelm. What are we what are we forgetting? What are we leaving out? What what haven't we covered? Yeah.

There's there's always an important thing because you can face complexity from your problems, your the way that you think, the way that you approach things. But, if you are a developer, you'll start seeing complexity in your source code. And, there's room to simplify those things also because all of us have kind of, energy reactions to bad code, for example, or when you read your source code from a few months ago, for example. And there are few things that you can do that can be really helpful. And you can start by the idea of clean codes that I think that is really important, and people tend to to ignore it.

And I I don't understand how so many people start working in this industry without knowing concepts of clean code, for example, and no one takes the time to to teach them. And other thing that I think that is really important is to being aware that there are patterns and anti patterns. Because I see patterns and anti patterns as, history, where you you know if something will work in your context or if something sometimes will backfire. And being aware of those kind of histories can be really beneficial, and people need to to be aware of those things. So never forget to try to write your code in a way that can be well maintained, easy to read, and simple to to you and simple to others in order to simplify your time today and your time in the future.

That that's that's really important to me. That's great. That's great. You know, I I really enjoyed this episode. I'm I'm glad we brought you on the show.

You know? Hopefully, it can help all of our our mental health and make our code better and all sorts of things. Thank you. I feel I need to do what Caleb does and start meditating, go up to an hour a day. I'm not sure if I could, but, I would.

Didn't you go to some camp at some point, Caleb? Or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That but that was in my twenties when I when I had, like, 10 days of being able to do nothing. I could never Why? I don't know if you talk, oh, I can do it. I would take 10 days off. I would love to see you do that.

Even if you only did it for a week, I would love for you to do it and let me know what results you get. Right? I'll let you know by next week. Alright? Whether Okay.

Alright. I'll I'll I'll probably 10 minutes a day for for next for the next 7 days. How about that? There you go. That sounds good.

That sounds good. I love it. Are we all committing for this? Or You know what? I all these things really helped me.

The the idea for me, one of the big things, which kinda was queued up with something that Sean was saying was just idea that free time is wasted time and all the ways to think about it. This this analogy, Hugh Jackman to a shower. Like, if this person takes a shower, they feel good every day. They feel presentable. And then, you know, Sean talking about specific or sorry.

I mean, Caleb talking about specific benefits he's got being less reactive, a sense of peace, and then a bigger sense of perspective about what life is really all about for him. It's like these are very tangible things to me. And so, yeah, why I'm in, I'm I'm I'll I'll do this too. And you can think and you can think, like, the best thing of simplicity and mindfulness and all those things is that something simple seems that they have quality improvements. Okay?

You know the the brands that, for example, Apple has, and most of those things are related to WellCare, Simplicity, user experience, and all of those things is what we should looking look for us, that kind of feeling. When you have something simple, the cognitive will to face it, it's quite small when compared to something really complex. Mhmm. Great. Great.

I'm gonna move us on to picks. We've been going on for a while, so I think it's pick time. Go ahead, Joel. What's your what's your pick? Great.

So, we have had, ice on our roads out here now on and off for 4 weeks. We got a really early start to winter. And so I have put away my fast and speedy and lightweight bikes, and I'm actually out on, I don't know if these are as popular in other parts of the US, but fat bikes are really popular up here because they're safe on snow and ice. And so, my particular fat bike is a 907 model, and I, picked it up used from a guy, and it's gone on, the widest rims you can get, which helps the tire layout flatter and be even wider on the snow. You run them down instead of, like, my racing bike back when we used to race, the common tire pressure would be, like, 100 to 130 PSI.

A fat bike in the winter, you might run at 6, 7, or 8 PSI. So they lay down real flat, and they're real pliable and sticky, and it just kinda slip out. But you're pedaling pretty hard. Yeah. They're good for the beach too, I think.

Actually, they will stay and float on top of that sand kinda like they do for snow. So Yeah. So maybe they are a little more common than I think, but we I think them as a kind of a northern latitudes kind of flight. But It's so you're riding on the road or you're riding on, like, dirt? So two parts to it.

1, up here in Minnesota, we're one of the 2 top cities for having a lot of trails that are next to roads where you're not having to be on the road. So that's quite nice. I'll also ride on the roads because I'm comfortable. I've done it so much. But the third thing is once the freeze is finally done and all the ground is frozen, then we can go back to the mountain bike parks and ride on trails in the woods.

It's just right now we're not fall free cycle, and it's kinda muddy. They won't let us anywhere near the trails because of weather. So we've really got all three options up here once things get colder. Cool. Cool.

Yeah. So my pick is the 907 model of bikes. I'll put a link in here to them. Cool. Alright.

Why what'd you pick? So I bought a a new running watch this week, which I thought would be my pick. It's it's a Garmin 245. And, yeah, it's got, like, tons of sensors to detect, like, you know, when you sleep and exercise, how stressful you are actually. I'm not sure how accurate that is.

Yes. It's got, like, tons of data, so I'm hoping it'll motivate me to exercise. I might even have to start to take up running. So oh, yeah. I've got a really good deal.

So yeah. Alright. Cool. Caleb? My pick actually falls right in line with what we talked about with mindfulness and meditation.

And it is a an Android and iOS app similar to Calm and Headspace. It's called Waking Up, and it lets you try out their open introductory meditation stuff that you can do the first 10 days or something. And then after that, it is subscription based. It's $99 a year. But if you can't afford it, which, you know, I think most of us could, but if you can't, you can actually email them and tell them, and they'll immediately give you, a free annual subscription because their idea is that they want everyone to have access to meditation and mindfulness regardless of your economic status.

So That's fantastic. Well, so what's what's different between those types of apps and, Callum or Headspace? It's right. They're they're all trying to do the same thing. They're just doing it a little differently.

And I think part of it is finding the app that suits you best. Headspace didn't really work for me. I actually have a lifetime subscription to Calm, and and I like it. But I found this app through one of my podcasts, other podcasts I listened to, and I tried it. And the guy who who created it, he does all of the all of the meditations himself, and he has a calming voice.

And his his perspective and and how he goes about it, I just I appreciate it. I like it. So I think it's personal preference, really. Alright. Graham, what's your, what's your pick?

Yeah. If you don't mind, I want to give 2. And Yeah. No problem. One of them is one book that I believe that everyone in software development should read.

That is the Phoenix Project. It's a really, really good book that everyone tends to to see themselves in in that book or knowing one of those characters. It's a kind of a novel, but about technology. And the other one is a miniseries from Netflix that is The Last Dance about, Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. Even if you don't like NBA, for example, I live in a country of football.

So, football, the European, the original one. And NBA isn't something that we tend to see. But I really like that that TV show because it teaches somewhat so many things about the teams and leadership and the the dynamics of a group, where you see a superstar being a member of of a team. And I really recommend that to anyone working in the team. Awesome.

Yeah. I I watched, most of that series when it first came on. It was really interesting. Lot of people had opinions on it, so it was some controversy and some of the comments and attitudes and things like that. But I it was definitely worth watching.

So, my pick this week is actually gonna be a new podcast microphone that I picked up. I've recorded the last couple of shows using this microphone. It's made by Shure, and it's kind of a it's kind of a pro surmer microphone. It's kinda in between, you know, what you'll find on your your store shelves, like Best Buy or something like that. And the professional studio microphones.

It's the Shure MV 7. Really nice microphone. It's a good software to go along with it. It's kind of a really good pickup. It's it's based upon one of the most popular Shure studio microphones out there.

So if you are looking for getting serious into podcasts or audio recordings, definitely check out the Shure MV 7. And I picked up a boom arm to go along with it, but other than that, it works great just by itself. Alright, Graham. If people have questions, how can they get in touch with you? Okay.

They can check my website or, my Twitter account. If we can leave in the comments, in the notes, it will be cool. Yeah. Definitely will. Definitely will.

Great. And if our listeners wanna get in touch with the show, if you got feedbacks, comments, we'd love to hear from you. You can touch get in touch with me on Twitter. I am at dotnetsuperhero. Thanks, everyone.

Bye, y'all. Bye. Bye. Bye, everyone. Alright.

We'll catch you. We'll catch everybody on the next episode of adventures in dot net.