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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?

#61

Post by MaxGabriel »

nosignal wrote: post #59
dkarl wrote: post #51

I've had a lot of different work habits over my career, mostly because of internal psychological factors and external work circumstances. What I've learned from all the variation is that when I encounter a moment of uncertainty and doubt, my brain wants to decide between two choices: - relaxing and taking a web-surfing break (Facebook, HN, national news) until the uncertainty resolves, or - gritting my teeth, amping…

Interesting you mention this; I've recently started a new job which requires me to learn a whole new skillset (web programming with JavaScript). I've been a developer of desktop apps for a while so programming isn't new, but the language and the paradigms (async? wtf?) are challenging. This is in contrast to my early memories of "web programming" aka making a static Geocities site with notepad and wondering why every…

I had that realization today, that I was getting frustrated too easily when I had to learn something new and difficult in iOS, and inevitably I'd bring up Chrome to load HN & co.

This morning I followed the workflow in the OP, and it really improved my performance. I set a timer for an hour, really put work into understanding everything, and when I was done I took a 35 minute break (it is a Sunday). It was rewarding and productive; I'm going to keep this behavior up. Thanks Jiri

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

#62

Post by groby_b »

voidr wrote: post #6

What if our brain is actually a multi core machine that has millions of cores? Would you still force it to use one core? What if the task you just put into background kept working on it's own? I think humans were built to multitask, our environment is too complex to be single threaded, think driving: you need o pay attention to multiply things at the same time.

Fantastic that you believe that. Unfortunately, pretty much all science on that topic contradicts you. There's a metric ton of studies that show that our brains worked best focused on a single task.

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

#63

Post by indubitably »

steve8918 wrote: post #45
lysol wrote: post #43

There are salient points here, but they're masked by the caricature of a maniac who can't go without Facebook for five seconds and a mythical beast that never gives his brain a break from work. Real developers fit into some reasonable amount of both kinds of behavior and it's the balance that is important, and different for every developer. Be smart and be true to yourself, not a watered down version of someone else'…

I agree. I don't like it when some random blogger talks with fake authority on an issue and boils it down to some black-and-white binary comparison. That being said, one thing I realized last week is that I distract myself way too much while I'm supposed to be working. Starting tomorrow (I don't plan on working today), I'm closing my e-mail, IM, Facebook, Words with Friends and stock charts and hope that increases my…

> Starting tomorrow

No you're not. I mean, come on. This guy is advocating an asocial lifestyle. We live in our computational environments, and we need constant contact with the world outside that environment, even though we're _using_ that environment to make the contact.

We're human beings, not machines.

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

#64

Post by swah »

voidr wrote: post #6

What if our brain is actually a multi core machine that has millions of cores? Would you still force it to use one core? What if the task you just put into background kept working on it's own? I think humans were built to multitask, our environment is too complex to be single threaded, think driving: you need o pay attention to multiply things at the same time.

Perhaps its a bad analogy? The "single task" you're working on also has sends signals to you.

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

#65

Post by stephen »

I have the best luck staying on task by doodling--keep a pad of paper and pen on my desk, and while waiting for compiling/whatever, just draw.

It's like being bored in class but still needing to pay some amount of attention.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1017270...

There was also a TED talk that was pro-doodling, so it must be awesome, right?

http://www.ted.com/talks/sunni_brown.html

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

#66

Post by vectorjohn »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #61
nosignal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you mention this; I've recently started a new job which requires me to learn a whole new skillset (web programming with JavaScript). I've been a developer of desktop apps for a while so programming isn't new, but the language and the paradigms (async? wtf?) are challenging. This is in contrast to my early memories of "web programming" aka making a static Geocities site with notepad and wondering why every…

I had that realization today, that I was getting frustrated too easily when I had to learn something new and difficult in iOS, and inevitably I'd bring up Chrome to load HN & co. This morning I followed the workflow in the OP, and it really improved my performance. I set a timer for an hour, really put work into understanding everything, and when I was done I took a 35 minute break (it is a Sunday). It was rewarding…

I know it sounds silly, and I joked about it for a while before trying it. I put HN, reddit, and news.google.com in my hosts file pointing to localhost. The extra few seconds it would take me to modify that file, and the knowledge that I was breaking something I explicitly put up for my own good, keeps me from visiting these sites.

On the other hand, I've learned a lot of new distracting sites this way :(

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

#67

Post by jgeerts »

indubitably wrote: post #63
steve8918 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't like it when some random blogger talks with fake authority on an issue and boils it down to some black-and-white binary comparison. That being said, one thing I realized last week is that I distract myself way too much while I'm supposed to be working. Starting tomorrow (I don't plan on working today), I'm closing my e-mail, IM, Facebook, Words with Friends and stock charts and hope that increases my…

> Starting tomorrow No you're not. I mean, come on. This guy is advocating an asocial lifestyle. We live in our computational environments, and we need constant contact with the world outside that environment, even though we're _using_ that environment to make the contact. We're human beings, not machines.

That's what I thought too, not talking to your co-workers is a bridge too far and the consequence for doing the meditation is that everybody in your company will know you. But there is a lot of truth to what he is saying and I often find myself in the distraction loop he is describing. If you plan out your day more structured you will get more result, I agree on that. He is also describing what our bosses expect from us, writing code most of the time. But we often read HN, facebook, twitter... We need breaks but I indeed handle them unstructured. I will take some, but not all of his advice.

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

#68

Post by jirinovotny »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #61
nosignal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you mention this; I've recently started a new job which requires me to learn a whole new skillset (web programming with JavaScript). I've been a developer of desktop apps for a while so programming isn't new, but the language and the paradigms (async? wtf?) are challenging. This is in contrast to my early memories of "web programming" aka making a static Geocities site with notepad and wondering why every…

I had that realization today, that I was getting frustrated too easily when I had to learn something new and difficult in iOS, and inevitably I'd bring up Chrome to load HN & co. This morning I followed the workflow in the OP, and it really improved my performance. I set a timer for an hour, really put work into understanding everything, and when I was done I took a 35 minute break (it is a Sunday). It was rewarding…

You are welcome Max! I'm really happy that it has helped you.

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

#69

Post by philwelch »

voidr wrote: post #6

What if our brain is actually a multi core machine that has millions of cores? Would you still force it to use one core? What if the task you just put into background kept working on it's own? I think humans were built to multitask, our environment is too complex to be single threaded, think driving: you need o pay attention to multiply things at the same time.

Actual research suggests differently: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-sense/200908/the-m...
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