Reducing GitHub Anxiety with CodeCommit

I use GitHub daily. It is the centre of open source and where most of my projects live. But there is one part of it that has always given me anxiety: the activity chart on my profile.

On paper it is harmless, just a grid of green squares showing how often you commit. In reality it can feel like a public scoreboard of productivity. Seeing gaps or lighter shades sometimes made me feel like I was not doing enough, even when I was.

My workaround

To take the pressure off, I started using AWS CodeCommit for my day-to-day development. I commit there privately, without worrying about how it looks. When the code is ready or the project feels solid, I push it to GitHub.

This way I still get the benefits of GitHub when I need them, but I avoid the constant nagging from that contribution graph.

Why it works for me

It might sound strange, but separating the two has helped me enjoy coding more. I get the privacy of working without an audience, with the option of sharing when I want to. It also means my GitHub profile shows work that feels meaningful, rather than every half-baked experiment.

Thanks for reading. If you have your own approach to managing the pressure of public platforms, I would be interested to hear about it.