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A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

census.dev

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Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#121

Post by rwoerz »

yuuuuyu wrote: post #67
augment001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineering director years ago I had the rule that engineers hours were 10am-6pm, and I'd walk around the office at 6pm and send people home. I'd get complaints that I was making people stop when they were in the middle of something, and I'd just say, you can carry on with it in the morning. It worked extremely well. Engineers just wanted to get on with their work as soon as they arrived in the morning. We'd ha…

That could backfire. Maybe they were in the middle of something hard that's difficult to pick up from. To use the metaphor, perhaps you would be forcing them to park uphill.

Or they are on a hard nut to crack and better should sleep over it. I know unsolved bugs can make you sleepless sometimes but sleeping over them often does the right kind of "backtracking" in your mind that leads to the "branch" with the solution the next morning.

Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#123

Post by eyelidlessness »

tylerc230 wrote: post #112

If I need to stop in the middle of something, I’ll often write directly in the source code, at the point where I stopped, exactly what I was working on and what to do next. I don’t comment out these instructions to my future self so when I sit down next, the project won’t even compile.

I don’t usually leave notes, I just leave the last thing I looked at in whatever arbitrary failure state it was in, unsaved, with whatever undo history I stopped at. If the errors aren’t immediately obvious, a couple cmd-Zs is usually all it takes to jog my memory and at least start retracing my steps

Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#125

Post by adave »

augment001 wrote: post #73
yuuuuyu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could backfire. Maybe they were in the middle of something hard that's difficult to pick up from. To use the metaphor, perhaps you would be forcing them to park uphill.

> Maybe they were in the middle of something hard that's difficult to pick up from. Certainly some of them said that, and I had to push for them to leave anyway. I also feel like that when I’m coding myself sometimes. But I think the of times when it’s actually true are vastly outnumbered by the times when it’s just an illusion, and it was obvious from the velocity and energy level that the policy worked.

I would work for such a guy. That tell me a lot about management caring about talent than any bs marketing pitch they give during interviews. Give me cold hard facts.

Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#126

Post by adastra22 »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #123
tylerc230 wrote: post #112

If I need to stop in the middle of something, I’ll often write directly in the source code, at the point where I stopped, exactly what I was working on and what to do next. I don’t comment out these instructions to my future self so when I sit down next, the project won’t even compile.

I don’t usually leave notes, I just leave the last thing I looked at in whatever arbitrary failure state it was in, unsaved, with whatever undo history I stopped at. If the errors aren’t immediately obvious, a couple cmd-Zs is usually all it takes to jog my memory and at least start retracing my steps

What editor configuration are you using that saves undo history like that?

Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#127

Post by flippinburgers »

yuuuuyu wrote: post #67
augment001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineering director years ago I had the rule that engineers hours were 10am-6pm, and I'd walk around the office at 6pm and send people home. I'd get complaints that I was making people stop when they were in the middle of something, and I'd just say, you can carry on with it in the morning. It worked extremely well. Engineers just wanted to get on with their work as soon as they arrived in the morning. We'd ha…

That could backfire. Maybe they were in the middle of something hard that's difficult to pick up from. To use the metaphor, perhaps you would be forcing them to park uphill.

In almost every case that I find myself working on something "hard" stepping away, losing focus, and then thinking periodically about the problem leads to higher levels of clarity.

Re: A trick to reaching flow: Leave your work broken

#128

Post by adastra22 »

irrational wrote: post #29
augment001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineering director years ago I had the rule that engineers hours were 10am-6pm, and I'd walk around the office at 6pm and send people home. I'd get complaints that I was making people stop when they were in the middle of something, and I'd just say, you can carry on with it in the morning. It worked extremely well. Engineers just wanted to get on with their work as soon as they arrived in the morning. We'd ha…

6pm? Man, I’m so glad I didn’t work for you. That is late.

He's saying that's the latest. You can presumably leave earlier, but you can't stay later.
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