There is a tendency to write code thinking that the computer is your audience.
Strictly speaking, that's true since the code does have to work. But if you write with your human audience in mind, just that mindset helps to produce more readable code.
If you're worried that that will produce slow code, keep in mind that the most programs almost all of their time in very small portions of code. Start out writing for readability, then use a profiler to identify the right sections to optimise.
