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073 Oh my GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) with Jeffrey Kunkel

By Michaela Light 2 Comments

Jeffrey Kunkel talks about “Oh my GAD (General Anxiety Disorder)” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive podcast with host Michaela Light.

By our nature web developers are prone to anxiety. Web development takes a monumental dedication to continuing education, networking, and being an expert source for many of your coworkers. Learning to manage stress early can be one of the most indispensable skills for a long healthy career in web development. Be it FOMO, Impostor Syndrome, Analysis Paralysis, or just generally feeling overwhelmed, developers of all levels can benefit from learning to take a step back and allow themselves to relax and be productive.

I will focus on my perspective of being a web developer with anxiety in today's web development world. I'll talk about using “Fake it 'till you make it” philosophy to help combat the anxiety of keeping up with the ever evolving web. I also plan to delve into “Impostor Syndrome,” and more specifically how to foster self confidence in your ability without cultivating an ego. By the end of my talk I'd like people to leave with the stress management skills and frame of mind to increase their productivity and overall job satisfaction.

This talk is ideal for developers feeling the weight of career and having stress and anxiety productivity issues.QB

Show notes

Why this matters to all CF Developers

  • 20% of general population
  • 60% of CFers sometimes have Anxiety Disorder
  • Introverts
  • Stressful profession

Anxiety

  • Stress → bad for health and happiness
    • Can follow you home
    • Can lead to suicide
  • Bad for productivity

FOMO

Impostor Syndrome

  • Late to Git
  • Fear of being accused of being a fake, not knowing the topic
  • Just start learning it
  • Ok to admit you don’t know something and learn it
    • Stackoverflow
    • CF slack channel
    • Google
    • Ask
  • Impossible to know everything about everything in full stack development

Self confidence in your ability without cultivating an ego

  • Remember what it was like to be new to this

Analysis Paralysis

Overwhelm

  • Too many tasks to do
  • Lack of priorities
  • Planning up front save time in the end
  • Lots of tabs → more anxiety and distractions
  • Turn of speakers – so chat notification don’t interrupt my train of thought

Perfectionism

  • Adding bells and whistles to code
  • Ok to come back to less important issues later (add to todo list)
  • Limited perfection to top priority issue

Is anxiety all bad

  • Advantage of double checking
  • OCD = Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
  • Interruptions → anxiety spikes
    • Save where you where
    • Todoist note
    • Git Stash

Self medication

  • Alcohol
  • Food
  • Caffeine
  • Can be bad for your health
  • Negative feedback loop

Conferences

  • Alcohol

Stress management skills

  • Take a break
    • Wrist tracker reminder
  • Deep, slow breathing
  • Yoga
  • Reach out to developer friends and CF Community
  • Getting Things Done method
  • Music while I work
  • Turn off sound notifications on computer and phone
  • Mindsets
  • “Fake it 'till you make it” philosophy
  • You never learn if you panic before you start
  • CF Community
  • Standing desk
  • Exercise
  • Sleep
    • Naps
    • Earlier to bed vs later getting up
  • Less Caffeine
  • Family time

Female CFers more anxiety

Talk about your anxiety

Why are you proud to use CF?

WWIT for you to make CF more alive this year?

What are you looking forward to at Into The Box?

Mentioned in this episode

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Bio

Jeffrey Kunkel

Jeffrey Kunkel is an in house web developer for www.lightingnewyork.com. He has been developing for six years, and is excited to start contributing to the ColdFusion community at large.

Jeff has been living with anxiety, depression, and OCD for his entire career. He wants to take the lessons he's learned working around and with these conditions to better the workflow and productivity of his colleagues.

Links

Interview transcript

Michaela 0:01
Welcome back to the show today we're going to be looking at G ad general anxiety disorder and I am here with Jeffrey Kunkel rhymes with Uncle and we're going to look at why this matters to all cold fusion developers. You may be surprised by how many people this kind of thing effects and we'll talk about anxiety fo mo imposter syndrome. analysis paralysis, being overwhelmed. OCD,

perfectionism. And is anxiety all bad if you're a CF developer. And we'll also look at some solutions. But dealing with this, particularly if you're going to conferences this year, because it's a lot of cold fusion events happening. And that can bring out the worst in the anxiety. So welcome, Jeffrey.

Unknown 0:46
Oh,

Michaela 0:48
hey. And if you don't know him, he's a co founder and developer. He's been one for quite a few years now. And he's just getting more active in the coffee here. community. And this is the first time he's speaking. Yep. Publicly at a conference. So probably your little anxious about the whole talk thing that you're giving on anxiety? It's a bit of a

self referential Yep, they're

Jeffrey Kunkel 1:13
living the experience I'm talking about. Absolutely.

Read more

 

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