Ask HN: Deep work while waiting for builds? • Hacker News Board

Post by lwilld » Mon, May 20, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

I've been greatly inspired and influenced by the Deep Work [0] approach to my workday, and find myself able to really get into a flow and work effectively when I follow a Deep Work approach. I was also reminded of this when I saw this checklist [1] on HN recently.

I'm lucky enough to be work remotely with most of my colleagues in the US (I'm based in the Philippines), so I have a lot of control over my interruptions and can get a lot of work done in the morning while everyone else sleeps.

However, every time I get back into a deep work routine, I get distracted while waiting for builds to build, tests to run, etc. Sometimes it can just be 1 - 10 minutes, and in that time I can find myself on HN, instincively checking twitter or my email, and getting completely out of the flow.

For example, right now I'm waiting for a rather large Dockerfile to build and decided to write this post. I normally struggle the most when I have to do DevOps tasks (e.g. setting up CI pipelines, waiting for terraform to deploy only to tear down a deployment again).

Does anyone have advice for how to maintain a deep work "flow state" while waiting for random amounts of time? What do you do to maintain your focus?

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692

[1] https://doist.com/blog/complete-guide-to-deep-work/#Choose_Your_Deep_Work_Strategy