You can usually work uninterrupted 18-22h.
Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
131–140 of 271 posts
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's pretty ironic, because this is how a lot of people study in the library at college,show up and stay all night grinding in the flow state with your phone shut off. Yet when you graduate to the work place, you seldom have the opportunity to work like how you've been training to work for all your advanced schooling ever again. To be fair, I think staying up all night trying to be productive instead of getting a g…
There is a general accepted "healthy pattern", but I think there more to it: - not everyone has the same sleep patterns, and while it can usually be coherced, for some that doesn't work or has too many downsides. - some people have straight sleep issues and, sleeping in 6-8h blocks doesn't help. "then fix the issues" could be the basic advice, but again, that's usually easier said than done, or has worse side effects…
Indeed I am night owl. I tried to accommodate myself to go to bad early sleep 8-9h, het up early. Nevertheless, I am energized and happy only when I can get up between 8-9 (Morning;)) Which usually contradicts the social and work expectations…
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#133Now I have a family I often can't choose the end of my working day so it coincides with a natural break in my work. In those circumstances, when I know they're going to arrive back in less than 30 minutes, I stop working and do a brain dump of everything that's going on in my head into a plain text file. With that I can pick things up much faster the next morning. I've even started doing it during the day when both m…
Yeah, in the last few years I've started keeping a work log for projects. It's mostly a way to externalize and clarify thoughts. But I'll definitely use it for an end-of-session record of where I'm leaving off and where to pick up. And where it's possible, I love unit tests for this. Starting off in the morning with a failing unit test from yesterday's close gets me right back into it.
It’s good to have something like org-journal set up so you can write down arbitrary stuff without having to decide where to put it or remember where you probably put it later (I think GTD calls this “capture”).
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#134If I know I am going to have my day broken into sub 1hr chunks thanks to meetings and such, I pretty much write off the day entirely. It takes time to get into the flow state, some studies cite over 20 minutes, and once you are in it you want to stay in it for like four hours. No emails to follow up with, no slack, no zooms, no one tapping your shoulder, no conversations about the weekend distracting you on the perip…
if it takes you that long to get back into your code base, maybe your codebase is way too confusing. 2
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the point they're making, but I'm not sure you understand mine though. If someone talking about weight loss suggested that people should just never eat breakfast to reduce the amount of eating they do in a given day, it would be relevant to offer a critique this may end up being counterproductive overall to the goal due to it just pushing the issue into another part of the day; this is basically the same…
Yeah, but the point you missed was about the uninterruptedness of studying for an exam — a student might be able to dedicate a whole week to learning for an exam and then study each day with minor interruptions. That those studying session can sometimes be too long to be healthy is certainly true, but was not the point argued here. When someone argues that a Ferrari is a fast car and you criticize that not all red ca…
> Yeah, but the point you missed was about the uninterruptedness of studying for an exam — a student might be able to dedicate a whole week to learning for an exam and then study each day with minor interruptions.
I don't know why you assume that I don't understand that they're saying that their studying is uninterrupted when it's overnight. That doesn't change the fact that sleep deprivation is also something that makes any sort of studying less effective.
> When someone argues that a Ferrari is a fast car and you criticize that not all red cars are fast, you are arguing against a statement nobody made while still saying something true.
In this case, it feels more like someone said that Ferrari is a fast car, and I mentioned that some people can't afford Ferrari's and might find a different car a better fit, and then you came in extremely unhappy with the fact that I dared to mention anything other than a Ferrari because that's the only car OP mentioned. It's extremely common for people to reply to comments making a tangential point, and doing so doesn't at all take away from other people's abilities to have parallel discussions in other subthreads about different points; that's kind of the whole point of this style of forum.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#136You're going to be interrupted, so you better learn to do it efficiently. Learn not to have some flow state that takes a half hour to get into. That flow state is bullshit. You get so absorbed into the work that you do stupid things a mile a minute. Sometimes it takes an interruption to get you to see it. Let's see, where was I. Ah I was doing that, for such and such reason, and ... wait what? That's stupid. Let's sc…
Then you can only get trivial work done. Which is probably OK for most jobs to be honest. But imagine making design decisions in 10 minute chunks with less context than a ChatGPT prompt.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the point they're making, but I'm not sure you understand mine though. If someone talking about weight loss suggested that people should just never eat breakfast to reduce the amount of eating they do in a given day, it would be relevant to offer a critique this may end up being counterproductive overall to the goal due to it just pushing the issue into another part of the day; this is basically the same…
I'm not criticizing your logical point, but your choice of example might be unfortunate. Intermittent fasting seems to be a very effective strategy (for reasons unrelated to your point).
It's possible that my example might not be up to date. In the past I've been given advice that trying to just skip eating an entire meal at a time when one normally would makes someone less likely to be able to follow through with being as strict later in the day. Assuming that this isn't an outdated misconception, I think the comparison still somewhat holds. Studying all night and not sleeping is totally fine if you're able to function fine without sleep, but it's counterproductive if you're not. In the same way, "just eat less" works as long as you're able to follow it, but for some people, trying to follow that strategy without any other caveats might not be particularly effective.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#138I feel like this cost is not as big as some say. Surely it takes time to collect your thoughts after conversation, but in my experience that is like 1-5 minutes. It is usually worth it. I really think there should be more communication at work, not less.
You really should quit your day job and start selling courses on focus if you really can drop down to a flow state in under 5 minutes and on purpose.
I think you don't need to have deep flow state to make progress at work.
For me I think flow state is more about how interested I am about the task than how much time I have. And frankly many tasks at work aren't that interesting so even if I have half of day uninterrupted time, I don't get into flow state.
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#139You're going to be interrupted, so you better learn to do it efficiently. Learn not to have some flow state that takes a half hour to get into. That flow state is bullshit. You get so absorbed into the work that you do stupid things a mile a minute. Sometimes it takes an interruption to get you to see it. Let's see, where was I. Ah I was doing that, for such and such reason, and ... wait what? That's stupid. Let's sc…
Then you can only get trivial work done. Which is probably OK for most jobs to be honest. But imagine making design decisions in 10 minute chunks with less context than a ChatGPT prompt.
a design decision would come from collaboration, sure you can get 1st draft ready in 10-15 mins then re iterate it 1 or 2 times to see all of its pro's and cons are visible to you but then you would need all stakeholder's time to get it through
Re: Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you can only get trivial work done. Which is probably OK for most jobs to be honest. But imagine making design decisions in 10 minute chunks with less context than a ChatGPT prompt.
a design decision would come from collaboration, sure you can get 1st draft ready in 10-15 mins then re iterate it 1 or 2 times to see all of its pro's and cons are visible to you but then you would need all stakeholder's time to get it through
what about the bit where someone thinks?