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posted by martyb on Thursday July 27 2017, @09:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-just-stand-there dept.

A bit over fifteen years ago, developer Joel Spolsky wrote:

It makes me think of those researchers who say that basically people can't control what they eat, so any attempt to diet is bound to be short term and they will always yoyo back to their natural weight. Maybe as a software developer I really can't control when I'm productive, and I just have to take the slow times with the fast times and hope that they average out to enough lines of code to make me employable.

What drives me crazy is that ever since my first job I've realized that as a developer, I usually average about two or three hours a day of productive coding. When I had a summer internship at Microsoft, a fellow intern told me he was actually only going into work from 12 to 5 every day. Five hours, minus lunch, and his team loved him because he still managed to get a lot more done than average. I've found the same thing to be true. I feel a little bit guilty when I see how hard everybody else seems to be working, and I get about two or three quality hours in a day, and still I've always been one of the most productive members of the team. That's probably why when Peopleware and XP insist on eliminating overtime and working strictly 40 hour weeks, they do so secure in the knowledge that this won't reduce a team's output.

But it's not the days when I "only" get two hours of work done that worry me. It's the days when I can't do anything.

The writer reckons the key to a productive day of writing software lies most in just getting started at the beginning of it. Do Soylentils have tried-and-true tricks to getting into the flow of writing code, or is it always catch-as-catch-can?


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  • (Score: 2) by microtodd on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:07PM

    by microtodd (1866) on Thursday July 27 2017, @03:07PM (#545203) Homepage Journal

    Compare this to mowing the lawn, or washing your car. I can sit on the couch all Saturday and not want to get up and go mow the lawn. But if I actually force myself to do it, then once I'm mowing the lawn (although it may still suck) at least I'm doing it and getting it done. Its harder to get off the couch than it is to finish the lawn once you've started.

    For me what really helps is, take the first 15 minutes and write down things for the day. What do I want to accomplish? What tasks can I do right now, even if they are small ones? What are my priorities? Pick one task, and then do it, without any multitasking or email/slack up or slashdot open or anything. Get that one task done. When done, take a few minutes to go read slashdot. Usually that's enough for me to get in the zone and get going. If not, then pick another task and get going again.

    Sometimes after 3 or 4 tasks I can't get started. Those days I switch to "backup power" and start on housekeeping chores, like editing the wiki or studying something new. And sometimes after finishing 4-5 important tasks, I'm mentally blown and either need a break, or I can recognize I'd better just stop for the day and switch over to watching youtube tech talks about a new language paradigm or something.

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