Hard Environment refers to physical surroundings such as an office, home, desk, or network.
Soft Environment refers to electronic settings such as OS configurations, software and its settings, development environments, and production environments.
Both are important, and I assume you’ve already been optimizing their settings. You may not always focus on them, but you certainly do when necessary. At the very least, being indifferent is not an option.
However, there is another environment that is often neglected for some reason.
Body Environment refers to your bodily setting.
…Many of you might have just thought, “Ugh.” Yes, for some reason, Body Environment is often overlooked.
I believe that engineers—especially because we are engineers—should also pay attention to the Body Environment.
Those who aren’t particular about Hard Environment use cheap chairs, desks, and keyboards. Those who aren’t particular about Soft Environment use the OS and software in their default settings. You can easily imagine the loss caused by such indifference.
It’s not that I’m saying you absolutely must be particular; we’re talking about engineers. Working with high-level tasks in engineering means it’s probably better to pay attention.
Similarly, those neglecting the Body Environment are also missing out on various advantages. It’s such a waste. I even want to deal with Body Environment as part of my DevEx and DevRel efforts.
Therefore, I’ve developed a framework.
Body Environment Engineering is viewing the Body Environment through an engineering lens. We prepare theories and tools for us engineers—developers and managers alike—to focus on the Body Environment.
The following sections will provide a brief dive into Body Environment Engineering. You’ll learn about the approaches and concepts that can help you pay attention to your Body Environment.
Let’s start by summarizing the essence of Body Environment. We’ll compare with other environments, all unified as CC.
In a Hard Environment, physical space and skill are needed. In a Soft Environment, adapting to the endeavor of continuous customization is necessary. Similarly, in a Body Environment, constant self-maintenance is required.
Finally, I’ll introduce some approaches to focusing on the Body Environment.
Just like with systems or projects, it’s beneficial for the Body Environment to be data-driven. Specifically, measure factors that govern your health.
Examples:
Measurement types include:
y | nThe factors that should be measured depend on the person and situation. If you can define factors well, you can measure health status. You’ll know factors when your condition is bad or good. Once identified, it’s simple—eliminate poor factors and increase good ones.
To focus on Hard or Soft Environments, we engineers move our hands daily. To learn a new technology, you probably do the same.
Similarly, you need to take action to improve and strengthen the Body Environment. It borders on life-hacks and self-help domains, but here are examples:
The challenge is how to regularly perform such actions, but we’ll use robotization, discussed later.
Robotization refers to establishing systems or skills that allow certain actions to be performed regularly. It’s the most crucial concept in Body Environment Engineering. Some engineers may have set up cron or other job/task schedulers. This is the human version.
Key approaches include habituation, streamlining, daily routine, and dynamic reminders.
Depending on the person and situation, what suits best varies, so find an effective way.
We, engineers, know the harm of toxins. Brilliant jerks or technical debt won’t ruin us immediately, but long-term, they slowly corrode. However, they can’t be immediately eliminated, requiring routine reduction and removal, right? The same applies to Body Environment.
First, avoiding toxins such as soft drinks, smoking, and alcohol is better. Especially with alcohol, research may fluctuate its pros and cons, but it’s already recognized today as having “no benefit,” considered a toxin.
*While some might say it aids in relaxation or mental health, which is factual, I personally believe that being reliant on such substances is undesirable. It’s akin to drug addiction. Would we then condone drugs? It’s a necessary evil and should be a personal choice, but as engineers and professionals, it’s better not to rely on such toxins—I firmly believe that!
Bring these toxins as close to zero as possible. In most cases, you need to reduce or eliminate the root causes of stress. To identify the causes, you must face yourself. Refer to the following articles for retrospection and introspection:
Then, use detox (set periods with absolutely no exposure) for toxins that accumulate daily. This kind of toxin, if continuously built up, strengthens biases. It decreases tolerance to diversity and may lead to indifference in daily life, resulting in overwork. Therefore, occasional detox is recommended.
Examples:
For engineers, programming detox (abstaining from development or programming entirely) or AI agent detox (not using AI agents at all) can be beneficial.
For detox duration, a minimum of half a day, ideally more than a day, is desirable. Anything shorter isn’t effective.
Among toxins, there is only one that you may consume if you adhere to the proper amount: caffeine. I’ll skip the overview and benefits of caffeine, but as long as you don’t overconsume, it can be a reliable ally. I rely on it every morning.
The proper amount of caffeine really varies per person, so you must explore it yourself.
Specifics are as follows:
Whether it affects your sleep is the key. Reduce frequency and amount until it’s not affected.