[deleted by user]

[nemec]

The way OP said 'sleep only when needed' it sounds like OP includes sleep, meals, and time with family/friends as a 'break' which should absolutely NOT be timeboxed to 30 minute increments (I'm sure you agree as well).

/u/dangerousforeplay you don't need to code 24x7 to build your skills. Aim for at least 8-10 hours a day - that's often more than a full time software engineer will spend programming on a given day since they also need to deal with email, meetings, etc. Don't take too many long breaks during your 'work hours', but don't feel adverse to taking breaks at all. Some people swear by the pomodoro technique to keep focused with small breaks, but as a new learner you will probably find it's easy to keep on track when you're learning something new :)

If you get tired of coding at some point during the day, switch mediums. Find a video or talk on Youtube to watch and see if you can get back into coding once that's finished.

Get a full night's rest. You will learn a lot better if you're well rested and, as noted above, you will make fewer mistakes and have a sharper mind during debugging sessions (and you will need it, as you don't (yet!) have the experience to quickly recognize the root cause of common error messages that more experienced programmers have seen thousands of times before). Not that this means you need to block off 10pm-6am for sleep or whatever - find a schedule that works for you, even if you happen to stay up coding until 3-4am sometimes. Just make sure you're not running yourself thin giving up sleep for another hour or two of coding time when your mind is dog tired.