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Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

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Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#21

Post by jpatte »

IMHO this also as a lot to do with setting an appropriate work environment. On a desktop designed for work you should only have links and bookmarks related to your work. A bookmark to Facebook is a constant reminder that there might be something new on Facebook, and it's sole effect is to distract you.

I also noticed that having an appropriate background music is important. In my case I like to listen to Progressive Trance music (mostly ETN.FM Channel 2), and I have hundreds of recorded shows of 1 or 2 hours each. The goal here is to maintain a rhythm : keep going as the music goes on. I never listen to this music when I'm not working, so I ended up naturally associating it with work.

Every time a music show ends, I take a few seconds to look back on what I did during the last hour : did I complete my task ? Do I need a break ? If I feel stuck or tired I stop the music, switch environment to browse Facebook/Mail/HN/whatever, then come back 20 or 30 minutes later. Then I start by "reloading my context", reminding what I was doing and what problems I needed to solve, having a look on my TODO list (paper), and when I feel ready I start the music again and begin coding.

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#23

Post by Osmose »

My personal habit is to play with a small deck of business cards, or sometimes a koosh ball with thin filaments. Both provide a pleasing tactile sensation and are easy enough to mess around with while thinking.

I also find it helpful to use this downtime to review how I've been working. The best thing I learned from the Pragmatic Programmer was to review my coding techniques and patterns, and see where there could be an improvement. Perhaps I spent the last 20 minutes fixing the wrong problem, or perhaps I didn't use a design pattern that would've made my code cleaner and easier to understand. Micro-breaks are a great time for these reviews because the code is fresh in your mind, whereas a retrospective when a release is done requires a lot more looking back.

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#24

Post by matheusalmeida »

I have to agree with the author of the post. I had the habit of checking my personal email, read BBC to see it the world was not in war and checking HN while the project I was working was building (I thought it was no big deal http://xkcd.com/303/). The big deal is that it affected my productivity. Period. When the program finished building or it aborted in the middle of the process of building, I was still thinking about something I read. It always took me some minutes before I was ready again to continue where I was.

Since the project I'm working can have long periods of building time (~up to 40minutes), I've started several projects while waiting for the program to build. Since they are all related to coding, I feel that I can swith taks much easily than reading news/checking email. And I believe I'll become a better programmer because of that (also because the projects I've started are tools to help me to perform my work).

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#25

Post by potomak »

I think I'm a distraction-junkie, I'm using Tomatoes[1], a tool to measure coding slots with pomodoros. It works great, but when I'm compiling my code, in my case running tests because I work on web applications, I can't resist to check email. I'll try useful tips from the article like reading while waiting for long tasks.

[1] http://tomatoes.heroku.com

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#26

Post by Achshar »

I am the distraction junkie type but in a good way i guess. Loud music nd distractions (both online and offline) are the main drivers of my workflow. I find that if i have some kind of a mental feeling (out of the computer context) to push me through that code problem which won't solve, i can work alot faster and efficiently. For example i dont have a smartphone right now but i can get one if i finish my current gig then i really think about smartphone in my free time. It keeps the furnace hot :)

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#28

Post by damian2000 »

+1 for the breakdancing horse! I found I tend to be distracted more easily when I'm working on something that is repetetive or isn't really challenging. When I'm working on a serious bug and trying to solve some problem, I don't have any problem getting into 'the zone'.

Its interesting that in Sweden they have workplace laws actually requiring that anyone working at a computer screen gets 10 minutes of rest (away from the screen) every hour.

Re: Are You a Zen Coder or Distraction-Junkie?

#29

Post by beza1e1 »

greenyoda wrote: post #10

"Divide your time into 60 – 120 minutes blocks of work. Focus 100% percent in these blocks of time. Then take a 20-30 minute break and do something else entirely." This might be usable advice for someone who works at home on his own business, but for those of us who work in office environments, there are sources of distraction that are much more difficult to control than the urge to read news: meetings, your boss wal…

In a larger office, you are usually not paid for being productive. Responding quickly to mails from your boss is probably more effective than focused coding. So don't worry that much.

For the occasional productivity burst: schedule yourself a fake meeting, pick a lonesome place and your laptop, disconnect from instant messengers etc.

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