Mental Well-Being
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Awareness and activity
Less than half of the respondents are actively interested in the concept of mental health. Of those developers who are aware of this concept, 45% take care of their mental health by using psychological techniques and practices on their own. 40% are not concerned at all.
Habits and practices
Speaking of habits that promote mental health among developers, 21% of the respondents have a daily regimen, more than one third participate in high-activity sports, and slightly less than a half of the developers we surveyed separate work time from family and personal time.
Exercises for memory, attention, and thinking development are quite popular among developers – 40% of developers have tried these exercises as adults. However, mindfulness practices have gained popularity among developers. 40% of the respondents have tried meditation and 32% haven’t tried but would like to do it.
Interests
We asked our respondents which fields of knowledge they are interested in. As expected, Computer science and Engineering were among the top results, but amazingly enough, Music took third place (the number of people who are interested in Engineering and Music is approximately equal). At the same time, Psychology took ninth place out of 28 total options, which means 31% of developers find it interesting.
Challenges
We asked developers about their experience taking part in challenges. Turns out, more than half have participated in challenges, and just over one fifth would like to do so one day. A mere 13% don’t find challenges engaging at all.
Developers actively use challenges as an instrument for self-motivation – 74 % of developers made up their own challenges for themselves. The top three areas of life where developers are engaged in challenges are hobbies, profession, and body and health.
Goals and planning
The most popular goal among developers is learning new programming languages and technologies, a goal set by 81% of respondents. Furthermore, more than half of developers set themselves the goals of learning how to use development tools more effectively and developing soft skills.
44% of the respondents set their goals a month ahead, 22% an entire year ahead, and 17% determine their goals week-to-week. Almost half of the respondents simply keep track of their progress inside their own heads, without using tools or writing anything down. Interestingly, a roughly equal portion of developers do either use tools or make notes.
Productivity
The most popular ways to increase day-to-day productivity are learning how to use IDEs effectively as well as time management and self-organization. These methods are used by more than a half of developers.
The most powerful triggers of a sense of productivity for developers are seeing that the results of their work are of use, salary increase, and pleasure from the work process.
40%
developers do use special tools to increase their productivity. Trello, Google Keep, and Microsoft To Do are the most commonly used solutions.
Self-monitoring
57%
developers use self-monitoring apps or devices to track physical activity, sleep quality, health, and other metrics.
The most popular reasons to use such tools are to track physical activity and sleep quality. At the same time, less than a quarter of developers track the calories and nutrients they consume. And only 5% of developers use these tools to compete with others.
Fatigue and flow
Almost a quarter of developers often or always feel tired while working, which means that they are at risk of burnout. On the other end of the spectrum, 11% developers say they rarely feel tired.
More than a half of developers have no problems with concentration while working – they are often, very often, or almost always “in the zone”. On the other hand, 9% of developers have difficulty concentrating during work.
Burnout
73%
of developers have experienced burnout at some point in their careers.
By “burnout” we meant emotional exhaustion and decreased motivation due to intense or difficult work.
UX/UI designers and people in C-level positions experience burnout more rarely than people in other roles. Developer Advocates, DBAs, and Technical Writers are most prone to burnout.
There’s also a link between burnout frequency and primary programming language: those who use Shell scripting languages most often report they have experienced burnout. The least susceptible to burnout are Kotlin, PHP, TypeScript, and C# users.
It’s no surprise that those who had more than 2 weeks of vacation are (8 percentage points) less likely to experience burnout.
Bedtime also matters. Those who go to bed after 1 am experience burnout (10 percentage points) more often than those going to bed before 10 pm.
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Raw data
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