24 KiB
A day's journey
Riding until dawn
As programmers we are always trying to find new ways to be productive. Tweaks to text editors, compilation tweaks, scripts and automation; the list goes on for how programmers want to maximize their productive coding time. We also spend time tweaking the rest of our lives with the belief that we should always be doing something related to coding. Any moment we're not coding is a moment where our projects get behind. And getting behind with our coding can lead to other problems: missed deadlines, other companies getting their program to market before us, or other instances where we miss an opportunity. We're constantly worrying that we're not doing enough to succeed.
We've heard stories of developers waking up at their computers to the strange sound of beeping because they fell asleep at the keyboard and the keyboard's auto repeat can't handle any more input with their faces resting on the keys. Isn't that how developers should work?
There's a tendency to believe that because we work with machines that are tireless and ready for more work that we nee to adapt ourselves to these machines. We feel the urge to always be "on" and ready to give the machine more work. Idleness is regarded as a waste. We try to become like the machine; tireless and always ready for more work.
There's a problem with always being "on." When we feel like we always have to be "on" we never let ourselves feel like we can be "off." We don't allow ourselves any periods of idleness and rest. This creates a pattern where we deny ourselves the moments to sit and reflect on what we're doing. We force ourselves to keep moving; keep programming no matter the personal cost. Our brains don't get the ability to rest, relax, and recharge. Our minds are too busy and exhausted to process what we've learned and sweep that knowledge into long-term storage. When we get exhausted we start to worry that we're not doing enough. This doesn't motivate us; instead it creates a vicious feedback loop of fear and panic. We spend our day worrying that we're not doing enough while our minds cry out "enough!" from exhaustion. This feedback loop of fear and exhaustion can spiral us into a vortex of burnout, depression, and a desire to leave programming for good.
There's a delicate balance that we need to strike between our desires of being on all the time and our needs for relaxation and reflection. Our desire for invincible and indefatigable development needs to be tempered with the reality that our bodies and minds have finite resources per day that must be allocated appropriately. Think of this as power-management for a complex machine that the manufacturer (currently) doesn't allow you to swap out the battery when it is spent. Being aware of what processes are running, how much energy is being used, and how much energy is left is vital for ensuring you can still be functional later on in the day. That's the level of awareness we need to have about ourselves.
How do we balance these feelings of wanting to be on all the time while allowing ourselves to relax and reflect on what we're doing? How do we pay attention to the needs of this "programming machine"?
Lights out
First, we need to acknowledge that we can't be on all the time. We may know this intuitively and think "yes, of course" but knowing is not the same as doing. We need to have periods where we are not programming and not thinking about programming. We should have moments where we can turn off the programmer part of our being. These periods of not-programming are vital to our well-being and give us chances to explore the wider world and let our minds rest in-between programming sessions.
This can be tricky if we feel like we're falling behind in our learning. When are we supposed to learn all of the new things happening daily? When are we supposed to catch up on all of that technical debt we've been accruing over the years? When will we have time to learn the ins-and-outs of technologies that aren't part of our day-to-day work but are still interesting to us?
These feelings that we have (that there's more to do, and that we need to spend every waking moment doing it lest we fall behind) aren't helped when we compare ourselves to other programmers who appear super productive. These are the programmers who think of a clever idea in the morning and have a working prototype in the afternoon (while still handling normal work routine). When we compare ourselves against these programmers we wonder if they ever take time away from the computer.
We can acknowledge that we have feelings of wanting to push ourselves to keep learning and doing. We can notice our feelings when we think "just one more line of code before bed" or convince ourselves "I can read a few more articles or pages or [insert favorite way to consume more information here]". We can pause and notice where these feelings and thoughts come from and understand why we're still pushing ourselves beyond exhaustion.
These feelings usually stem from a sense of inadequacy. We feel like we're not measuring up to the ideals we have; whether these ideals are ones we've created or ones that are externally driven. These ideals come from analyzing other programmers (colleagues or folks we admire), and measuring our progress against their work. They also come from our own mythical ideas of what makes a perfect programmer.
What we need to realize is that those ideas of what makes good and perfect programmers are fantasies. They're a composite of what we think a good and perfect programmer should be. They don't exist in the real world. True, we may see programmers out there that seem to wake up with a keyboard attached to their hands, spend the entire day coding, and go to sleep with dreams of more code formulating in their heads. But we need to realize that we're only seeing one side of their lives. We're not seeing the whole picture of who they are. We need to focus on our own bodies and minds and realize when we are tired and need rest. We can't make ourselves into other people; we need to work with who and what we are.
Our bodies require down-time in order to be most effective. We need moments where we can step away from the keyboard and allow ourselves to wind down and relax. Our minds are not designed for constant work, especially at the levels that computer programming requires. The sooner we realize we should step back and take breaks throughout the day to recharge ourselves the happier (and more productive) we will be.
Taking a break
Taking a break is more than just flipping over to another application on our computer. My tendency while taking a break is to start checking my email or open up one of my various chat programs to catch up on what happened since I last opened it (usually since the last time I took a break). This really isn't taking a break as it is trying to multi-task at my desk. Real breaks involve getting up from the computer. It doesn't have to be a large break; taking a break can be as simple as moving away from your work-space into another room or area. You need to move away from your computer to get a "Context Switch", where your mind can feel like it isn't in the same place as it was earlier. Context Switching lets your mind completely switch out and flush out the context of the area you're in. It allows your mind to focus on new context and new input.
This can be tricky in an office where the underlying expectation is that one must be at their work space in order to be productive. And there are only so many "bio breaks" (breaks that are related to matters of human biology, also known as using the restroom) someone can take in such situations. How can you give yourself the context switch your mind needs in such situations?
You might be able to achieve the same sort of Context Switch by looking away from the computer display for a few moments. It's a good idea to look away from the screen every now-and-again to give your eyes a rest. Giving your mind a rest while you give your eyes a rest can give you the incentive to do both.
Changing your sitting / standing arrangement can also be a good Context Switch where you allow yourself a change in your physical workspace. It can be as simple as just standing up and stretching from time to time, or as complex as raising or lowering your standing desk. Telling yourself that there are two contexts around your desk: sitting and standing at the desk, may be enough to give yourself the Context Switch and rest that your mind needs.
If your workplace has a culture that allows you to step away from your desk and move around then that would be a great Context Switch. Adding a physical component (as much as you are able) to your Context Switch can help your mind to relax and recharge.
You'll have to experiment with a few of these to determine what works. At the bare minimum you'll want your mind to feel as though it doesn't have to be on all the time. You want your mind to have cool-down periods between coding sessions so it can flush the remnants of that session from your mental "cache" and into longer-term storage. Then when you get back to your coding session you'll be more likely to remember what was going on.
You may also find when you go away from the computer for a while that you'll forget what you were previously doing. That's OK. What I would recommend is keeping a journal or log of what you were thinking in as much detail as you need. Either write it on a physical piece of paper or use a text file to keep these notes so you'll have enough clues to allow you to pick up where you left off.
Productive thinking
Next, we need to realize that productivity is not a constant. There are days where we will find ourselves generating remarkable levels of code and code quality and days where we'll be lucky if we can string together a coherent string of words for a code comment. We have varying levels of energy and mental focus available to us per day. It's up to us to be mindful of these levels and understand what our productivity might look like for the day.
Understanding these swings of productivity can allow us to better gauge whether or not the day will allow us to generate the code that needs to be generated, but there's a level below that I think is important.
We put a lot of emphasis in our day on completion and hitting deadlines. This emphasis can cause us to create strong attachments to completion and deadlines. Sometimes this is warranted because of external factors (the "critical-path" of the project require us to get this done by a certain date and time). But many of our deadlines are internal deadlines that we've set for ourselves. We set a goal that we will be this productive by the end of the day. The unstated condition of this internal productivity deadline is that we'll feel guilty and ashamed if we miss the goal. We'll fee like we're not measuring up to our expectations and wonder if we're worthy of the task at hand. We'll feel like our day has been wasted and wonder if we're capable of doing anything at all.
It's better for us to remove deadlines wherever possible. We won't be able to get rid of the external ones where folks are waiting on our contributions (though it may be possible to renegotiate those if they're not hard deadlines) but we can let go of the desire to meet arbitrary productivity levels and arbitrary deadlines.
Arbitrary goals may work for some tasks. Some examples of this are game programming contests that only run for a week which makes teams focus on the critical pieces of the design and implementation of their game in order to release it in the allotted time. These can be a fun exercise for focusing your efforts, but they also incur a lot of stress and pressure before the contest's deadline. If you continually feel guilty and unworthy because you can't seem to meet the goals you set for yourself then you should reconsider whether it's useful to use them at all.
One trick that has helped me is creating small spaces of concentrated focus. That trick is described in the next section.
Containers
We should replace soft deadlines (deadlines that aren't externally imposed on us) with a commitment to work on a particular project for a given length of time. One trick I've found useful is the idea of a "timed focus container". When I do a timed focus container I start by choosing what will be focused on during the container. Once the task is chosen I set a timer at my work-space and then focus on that task with my full attention for the remainder of the time on the timer. I've had the best luck with using 10 minutes but a session as small as 5 minutes or as large as 30 minutes can be useful. The work selected at the beginning of the container is the only thing I work on, and I do my best to make sure there are no interruptions (whether internal or external) until the container is complete. When the work is done I wrap up the task with whatever I've completed, note whatever the next actions are for that task on my next actions list, and then take a quick break (usually around 5 minutes) before starting the next container. The next container can be a continuation of the same task, or I can select another task, but the idea is simple: I only focus on the task in front of me for the allotted time. When my mind tries to wander or I get the temptation to "just check this one thing" I pause for a moment and determine if it is indeed important. Most of the time it isn't important and I can make a quick note to check on it whenever I finish the container.
We can use these containers to overcome our desires to multitask. We only focus on one thing at a time. We can also use containers to just let the session go where it wants to take us. When we start the container we don't start off with trying to finish a particular task; instead we see where the session takes us. There is no judgment of the quality of the work in the container, just the expectation that we will work for the duration of the container. There's no expectation for what work we will accomplish, just that we will work on it until the container is finished. If we complete the task before the container ends then that's awesome! We can then figure out what the task for the next container will be. If the container ends and we're still in the middle of a task we can then write down where we left off and what steps we took in order to get there. We can then work on something else, or we can take a quick break and then come back to the work with a focus container.
The underlying concept of the timed focus container is to let ourselves agree to work within the confines of the container without judgment either for the work done or the progress made. When the work is done we close out the container by reflecting on what we did and where we need to go. We give ourselves permission to not worry about our progress in the moment, but we do allow ourselves moments where we can review our progress and note how far our journey has progressed. We allow ourselves the freedom to just work in the in the moment without fear of judgment, reprisal, or self-recrimination. The container is a gift of uninterrupted work that we give ourselves (or at least as uninterrupted as we can manage). We make this the best gift we can give by closing out other programs, turning off notifications, and giving this task the full attention it deserves.
I invite you to incorporate this practice of doing focused containers every day. I think they are an excellent way to give ourselves permission to focus on one thing at a time without the need or worry for what will get accomplished during that container. It allows us to focus on one thing at a time and do it to the best of our abilities. The limitation of working on one thing at a time without thinking about the other bits of work that we have to do can be liberating, and I hope that working with these containers will give you a sense of what fully-focused work can feel like.
This whole book was created and edited using focus containers. I took about 10 minutes per container to write the initial draft, and later I used 10 minute containers to edit the book. Sometimes they bled over into 15 or 20 minute containers but that was because I was so engaged with the material that I didn't want to stop. This was in sharp contrast with how I've normally approached tasks. Usually I need to get over the initial hurdle of allocating a half-hour or more to the task. This means that I need to feel like I have enough control over my schedule in order to clear out that space. Since I don't tend to feel like I have that level of control over my schedule I tend to procrastinate on the task. With a focus container I think to myself "I can just take 10 minutes to work on this" which is just enough time for my mind to not feel like it should be doing something else. With each container I gradually saw the progress of this book unfold. That then fed back into my desire to keep working on this book, which helped lower the mental friction to keep doing the containers to work on the book. It created a positive feedback-loop where I looked forward to the next time I could do the container and work on the book.
Distractions
Life is full of distractions. So many things want our attention, and many of these distractions are outside of our control. Someone enters our work-space and needs our attention at that moment. An email thread that we thought was settled becomes a heated discussion and our attention is drawn to it. Something happens at home and now our minds are split between worrying about our work tasks and worrying about what's happening at home. Whatever the cause may be, there are times when our attention isn't where we want it to be and we feel pulled in every direction at once.
This is when the containers are most helpful. If something interrupts the container we can determine if it's more important than the work we're doing. If we determine that it is more important than what we're currently doing we can stop the container with the understanding that we'll return to the work once we've handled the interruption. If the interruption is not more important then we can agree (both with whomever is interrupting us, or with ourselves) that our focus needs to be here with the work until the container ends. We'll be able to give that disruption our full attention once the container ends. We won't try to split our attention between the work and the interruption, rather we'll give each of them our full attention at the appropriate time.
This method creates a simple delineation between our work and the rest of the world, but just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Keeping the delineation between our work and the outside world can be challenging, especially if the culture you're in is about immediate results.
I don't have good answers if the culture you're in demands your attention at all times. The best I can offer is a containerized approach that gives you at least some periods of undisturbed concentration. If you feel on-guard all the time because something might happen at any moment then you're going to remain less effective than if you can shut the world off for a bit. I'd also challenge you to examine whether that perception is really true; are you constantly being ambushed by interruptions? Testing that theory may be in order. Keep a log (whether it's a sheet of paper, text file, spreadsheet, or database is up to you) of when you did a focus container and if that container was interrupted or not. If you find that you are getting interrupted more often than not then you need to determine what is causing the interruption and assess if it's something that you can control. There are many ways to handle and minimize workplace distractions that I won't go into here, but being aware of the distractions and determining where they are coming from will be key to figuring out how to mitigate them in the future.
Also be aware of the self-imposed distractions you've added to your life. Do you need immediate notification that someone liked something you shared? Is the funny anecdote you just remembered important enough to warrant switching out of your current context so you can post it to your friends and colleagues? Do you really need something to pop up in your field of view to let you know that your music player changed a track? Are you willing to sacrifice your attention and flow throughout the day because a program detected a change in your environment, regardless of the importance of that change?
We add these distractions into our lives because we worry that we might miss something important. Programs also come configured with most of their notifications turned on so a user can be reminded of the status of the program at all times. Perhaps it's useful, but for me they are very distracting. In my career I've sat at the desks of many other folks and have cringed at the number of notifications they receive in the short I period was there (a span of ten minutes or less). I've seen folks interrupt their current line of thinking because a notification for a message unrelated to the current task distracted them. What happened to the original thought? They had to mentally switch back to it and remember where they left off, usually at great mental effort.
I challenge you to turn off as many notifications as you can and get a taste of what your experience is like without them. That may be as simple as closing out an application when you're done with it, or may be as complex as changing the settings so an application doesn't notify you when new messages arrive. You'll need to play with this and see what works best for your needs and concentration. A good rule of thumb is "what does this thing track that is important enough for me to drop my important work and focus on this thing?." If you can scale your notifications so that only the most time-critical notifications reach you at the appropriate time then you'll be better able to relax and focus into your work. You won't have to parse the notifications to determine if what you're seeing is important or not.
One of the reasons I've heard for folks keeping their notifications on is that they feel they might receive something that requires an immediate response. We've created cultures where we feel a need to respond to messages the moment we receive them. I'd argue that most of the messages you receive during the day don't require the attention you're giving them, and certainly not the level of attention that warrants interrupting what you're doing to view and respond to them. You may be better served by scheduling several periods of the day where you do nothing but check and respond to your messages. Schedule these as infrequently as you can. Some folks recommend two or three times a day, but even setting a limit where you check your messages once an hour can make a vast improvement over how many times you're already checking your messages. You'll need to judge how often you check your messages based on your needs and your work culture. Also consider the person to whom you're responding. Does it make sense to give this person a quick, semi-thought-out response, or does this message require more time to simmer in your mind before you respond? Giving yourself time to think about a your response may give you additional insights into a problem that might not be readily apparent in the moment. This could mean the difference between one well thought out response versus a deluge of half-thought-out back-and-forth brainstorming via your messaging application. Responding to everything as it's received is very stressful and requires huge amounts of attention that could be better used in your programming work.
It may seem challenging and foreign to live without notifications and without the need to respond to every message and notification, but our attention is finite and limited. Maintaining focus throughout the day is challenging and stressful. If we can limit the number of distractions we receive throughout the day we then give ourselves the freedom to not have to work as hard to keep our attention attuned to our programming tasks. We get to say "not right now" to our distractions and handle them at a more appropriate time.