The Environment Includes Soft, Hard, and Body

Source: Dev.to

Overview

Engineers often focus on optimizing their Hard (physical) and Soft (electronic) environments. However, the Body Environment—our personal health and well‑being—is frequently neglected, leading to missed opportunities and reduced performance. This article introduces Body Environment Engineering, an approach that applies engineering principles to personal health.

Hard Environment

• Definition: Physical surroundings such as office, home, desk, network, chairs, and keyboards.
• Essence: Capital Configuration – acquiring and setting up physical items, securing space, and performing physical tasks. Once established, it remains stable until it breaks.

Soft Environment

• Definition: Electronic settings, including OS configurations, software, development environments, and production systems.
• Essence: Continuous Customization – constantly tweaking settings, trying new tools, and staying up‑to‑date with updates. Mastery of continuous customization is a key engineering skill.

Body Environment

• Definition: The bodily setting—hydration, meals, sleep, breaks, and overall physiological rhythm.
• Essence: Constant Care – regular replenishment of essential needs to maintain a stable rhythm.

Approaches to Body Environment Engineering

Measure Health Factors

• Why: Data‑driven insight helps identify conditions that make you feel good or bad.
• How: Define relevant factors, track them, and adjust by eliminating poor factors and reinforcing good ones.

Design Small Actions

1. Increase sleep: Create a night‑routine to extend sleep from 5 h to 7 h.
2. Morning walk: Schedule a 30‑minute walk for daily sunlight; prepare shoes and attire in advance.
3. Track fluid intake: Use a dedicated bottle and log consumption; consider a single drink type (e.g., barley tea or rooibos).
4. SNS detox: Acquire or build a tool to limit social‑media usage.

Robotization (Self‑Scheduling)

Apply job‑scheduling concepts (e.g., cron) to personal habits:

• Habituation: Build automatic habits through strict training and external enforcement.
• Streamlining: Place cues in frequently visited physical or digital locations; the cue triggers the action.
• Daily Routine: Define tasks that must be done each day, but can be performed at any time; use simple lists or continuous reminders.
• Dynamic Reminders: Leverage people (colleagues, roommates) as informal reminder agents.

Detox Periods

• Root Cause: Toxins (soft drinks, smoking, excessive alcohol) degrade health over time, similar to technical debt.
• Strategy: Reduce or eliminate toxin exposure gradually; schedule regular “detox periods” to reset habits.

By treating the Body Environment with the same rigor as Hard and Soft environments, engineers can achieve sustained performance, better health, and a more holistic DevEx.