Do you enjoy puzzles? It seems to be common for developers to enjoy puzzles. We have quite a few floating around our office. Not the jigsaws, but the little brain-teaser puzzles. Get the ring off the thing, form these shapes into a square, there is even a puzzle box around somewhere.
We enjoy these puzzles because we are problem solvers. Find the thing that doesn’t fit. Find how to make this old thing do a new trick. This was working last week, why is it now broken? Much of our jobs involve solving these problems. These brain teaser puzzles are kind of like exercise for our minds.
And these puzzles are fun. They are like playing games. Sometimes the pressure from work just builds up into stress. These puzzles can give a fun release for that stress, and help to bend your mind into a new way of looking at the problem.