As a developer it’s easy to get sucked into the Grid. By that I mean to spend way too much working on programming and software engineering and losing balance in life. There’s of course nothing wrong with liking to work on side projects on the weekend or contribute to open-source, but to be a complete and healthy person, you need to maintain a balance. Of course the obvious thing that we all should do is spend more time with family, especially if you have children, however, for this post, I’m going take that as a given and recommend other things that can help you unplug from the Grid.

Exercise: I hate working out. I hate gyms. In general I find the whole gym experience to be terribly uncomfortable and frankly dirty. However, it’s a proven fact that in addition to myriad physical health benefits, regular exercise improves cognitive function and has been shown to reduce stress. Needless to say, we could all use a little more cognitive horsepower and (especially around deadlines) are under a good deal of pressure.

Social Games: No, I don’t mean anything on Facebook or produced by Zinga. I mean real world social games, such as board and card games. There are a lot of options here but a few of my favorites:

Magic The Gathering : This is the original trading card game and while I don’t play it competitively anymore, my wife and I still have kitchen table matches one or twice a month. For those who don’t know Magic is a game of deck-building that has fairly complex rules. The basic strategy is to find novel ways that cards interact with each-other and with the overall rules to effectively bend or break those rules. This is the same type of problem-solving logic used to architect software systems

: This is the original trading card game and while I don’t play it competitively anymore, my wife and I still have kitchen table matches one or twice a month. For those who don’t know Magic is a game of deck-building that has fairly complex rules. The basic strategy is to find novel ways that cards interact with each-other and with the overall rules to effectively bend or break those rules. This is the same type of problem-solving logic used to architect software systems Small World : Small World is a great light resource management and conquest board game. It is far less complex than Magic, making it potentially more accessible for the whole family. It’s one of my favorites and doesn’t have the high cost of purchasing additional cards that is a common problem for regular Magic players.

: Small World is a great light resource management and conquest board game. It is far less complex than Magic, making it potentially more accessible for the whole family. It’s one of my favorites and doesn’t have the high cost of purchasing additional cards that is a common problem for regular Magic players. Ticket to Ride: I love trains and that’s what Ticket to Ride is all about. The basic concept of ticket to ride is that you are a railroad magnate and are trying to dominate your competition by building the most powerful (read largest and most lucrative) railroad line. There are variants of it for a number of regions including the US, Asia and Europe as well as a special simpler version for young robber barons.

I really love board and card games and these are just three of my favorites. A few honorable mentions are the hilarious Exploding Kittens and Cards Against Humanity, though I would recommend you keep the little ones away from Cards Against humanity.

I know this sounds a bit like: “go eat your vegetables.” However, there are many studies and articles that show that unplugging in these way will not only improve your general quality of life but will make you a better developer and more effective at your job. So, what do you do to unplug? Do you also like card and board games? Also, want to know what kind of stuff I’m working on when plugged in? Checkout The Mad Botter’s white-paper on the world’s only flying iPhone rear warning radar and follow me on Twitter.