Helping our fellow developers—or generally speaking, helping each another—is an important part of society. We all work and struggle on this planet, so offering a helping hand is always welcome. ❤️

It's been more than one year since started teaching people to code. I do it on Codementor—an open marketplace for code instructors. In general, we set up 1:1 live sessions and start talking. 😄 Then after we get everything fixed and finally both of us are happy.

What I really like about Codementor is that it connects a diversity of people around the planet. Each mentee is unique (cultures, lifestyle, accent, beliefs etc.), but they all have one single goal: to learn—and that's one of the facts that make us happy.

While I do teach people to do stuff, I keep an open eye on things I can learn as well. For instance, I learned how to use Firebase by working with one of my favourite mentees! 😊 Thanks! 🍰

Obviously, that means I can now take care of people wanting to learn Firebase as well.

⚡️ Here's how I do it! ⚡️

I'm blessed to live in a small, peaceful, and friendly village from Romania, far enough from the noise of the cities and still have great people around, and of course, a great internet connection! 🌍

In the morning I enjoy the birds singing (if I wake up early enough, sometimes there are few owls hooting too) and in the evening I listen to the crickets' songs.

💡 Tip: If you will ever need help in programming during the summer time, and we talk either in the morning or evening, you will have the opportunity to see the big crowd of cows going or coming back to and from the hill. It happens every sunny day, during the summer time. 🐄

Even though I'm a remote developer working mostly from home, it's still a lot of hard-work. Rest and relaxation are important as well. I find that taking a few days break from work and hiking up the mountains helps a lot.

Often I take my bike and ride it to my little house between two hills—to be alone, hiding in the mountains for a while, after which I go back. There, I don't have internet nor phone signal. Being in a place where you can be alone with your thoughts for a good while is where great ideas are born. I note each one somewhere, and when I get the chance to implement them, I just do it. ✨

Being in the middle of nature, listening to the flowing water, birds happily chirping all day is definitely something special—it's closer to our roots. I believe that if we want to be productive developers, be a good person to talk to, or just be human, we should take a look at the values that our Creator implanted in us.

Is what we eat and drink important?

There is a strong relation between the food we eat and the way we think. We should have our brains clean and agile when teaching others. That's done by knowing what, when, how, and how much to eat. As mentors, we should know the laws of life and health.

Not all of us work remotely, but I do recommend to get out of the cities and purchase a land in the countryside and start cultivating your own garden. Eat plants, not animals. We were designed to have a vegetarian diet.

There are so many things going on in the cities. Noise, crimes, immorality, pollution, and other unfortunate events. We can avoid all these. Faith, hope, love, happiness can be cultivated way better in the countryside, away from the cities.

Rest is important

While working is definitely important, rest is equally as important—if not, more so. Sleep 8 hours a night (sometimes before midnight) and wake up early in the morning.

💡 Tip: Bugs are much easier to fix in the morning than in the evening/night! 😂

We were designed to work the first six days of the week (Sunday to Friday), and then rest on the seventh day: Saturday. One of the secrets to be productive is to value each moment of our lives. ⏳

Summarizing, I always recommended: leave the cities as soon as possible, stand for good principles, eat and drink healthy stuff, work six days a week and rest on the seventh one, help the people around you and love them. We have no time to waste! 🚀

PS: Most parts of this post were written near a forest, somewhere in the western part of Romania. 🌲