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· Viachaslau Bohdan

Winter in Poland for a Software Developer — How to Simulate a Sunny Climate

A winter workday in Poland can stay dark from morning until you close the laptop. Here is how I add light, air, water, warmth, movement, and people back into it.

Viachaslau in a rainy Warsaw winter and in warm sunlight

If you are a programmer working from Poland, you probably know the feeling.

You wake up. It's dark.

You make coffee, open your laptop and start coding.

Hours later, you look outside.

It's still grey, cold and rainy.

Then you finish work — and it's already dark again.

For people who spend 8–10 hours a day behind a screen, winter can make this routine even more extreme.

So what can we actually do about it?

Here are a few things that help me think about winter differently.

☀️ Get more light

Don't spend the whole morning under artificial light.

Open the curtains. Work near a window. Get outside during daylight.

Light is an important signal for our body clock, and reduced daylight in winter can affect sleep, energy and mood.

For people with winter-pattern SAD, bright-light therapy is an established treatment. If you're considering it for SAD, discuss it with a healthcare professional.

🌬️ Get outside

As programmers, it's very easy to spend the entire day between your chair and your screen.

Make a short walk part of your working day.

Before work.

During lunch.

After a long meeting.

Even 20 minutes outside is better than spending the entire day indoors.

🌊 Add water

You don't need an ocean.

A swimming pool can be a great winter routine.

Swimming → sauna → shower → home.

After sitting and coding for hours, having a physical activity that completely changes your environment can make a big difference to how the day feels.

🔥 Find ways to get warm

Winter doesn't have to mean being cold all day.

Pool. Sauna. Warm shower. Warm café.

Small things, but they give you a break from the cold and darkness outside.

🚶 Move after coding

One of the easiest traps for programmers is finishing work and immediately sitting somewhere else.

Try replacing:

Laptop → sofa → phone

with:

Laptop → walk → gym / swimming / sport → home.

You don't have to train every day.

Just don't let your entire day happen in a chair.

👥 Don't forget about people

Remote work + winter can easily become:

Home → work → home.

Have something in your week that gets you out of the apartment.

The main idea

Programming already gives us a very indoor lifestyle.

Winter can make it even more extreme.

So during the darker months, I try to deliberately add more of the things that are missing:

You can't change the Polish winter.

But you can change what your typical winter workday looks like.

And for someone who spends most of the day coding, that can make a pretty big difference.

If you're a programmer working remotely from Poland, what is the hardest part of winter for you?