I have to confess, I’m a bit obsessed with smart watches, especially their bands. They last long, and the variety from brands like Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi over the last few years is pretty impressive. While they might not get the industry recognition they deserve, customers, myself included, love them. I’ve amassed quite a collection—no less than ten—for my family of four, including the kids. Gifting smart bands to young adults in my circle has become a habit.
Despite my enthusiasm, my wife has become rather irritated with my so-called passion. She rightly figured it would pass in a few months or years. She tried using a smart band for sleep tracking and alarms but didn’t take to it beyond the first couple of days. Our two-year-old son, who excels at hiding things, managed to misplace her smart band with morning alarm on near my study desk. For the past week, I’ve been on a mission to find it, as the morning alarm vibrations have been driving me crazy. The band only vibrates twice a day, ten minutes apart, making it even more difficult.
It vibrates for about 30 seconds every morning at 5:10 AM. To locate it, I started waking up early, sitting at my desk, either reading a book or scrolling through Reddit. When the vibrations started, I traced the sound to the lower shelves on the left-hand corner of my wardrobe. I meticulously removed and rearranged clothes, and eventually found the band buried three layers deep in my sock drawer. The whole process took a week because the band only vibrates briefly twice a day.
This experience reminded me of debugging a persistent bug—one that’s not urgent enough to involve the whole team, but annoying nonetheless. The approach to solve any of these bugs which does not resolve over a simple or a deep session of surfing is:
Allocating time to a bug and working on it consistently is the only way we can solve it. Consistency is the key.
- Allocate Dedicated Time: Consistency is key. Set aside time to work on the bug regularly.
- Persistence Pays Off: Even small efforts add up. Don’t give up after a few tries.
- Keep a Clear Head: Allocate dedicated time to avoid obsessing over the bug constantly.
These principles apply whether it’s a minor symbol error or an issue with a third-party library. This method also helps us not keeping it all the time in our head, because we allocated a dedicated time to attend to it. Programming can be tiresome, but a slight shift in mindset can make a world of difference.
