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> I get easily distracted, my mind wonders and I find myself reading HN and browsing the internet. This is a challenge to conquer, irrespective of whether or not you are using ai-assisted code editors or not.
But when vibe coding this happens constantly every small periods of time.
Instead of developing, I'm code reviewing. Hard to get into a flow state when claude is the one flowing, not me.
Maybe just me, but I have given up on flow state and my solution is to run 2 or 3 projects concurrently and switch between them. I use virtual desktops. work on one, give an assignment to my AI, switch to the next and cycle through them all day long.
Highly opinionated: Regarding using agents for a main project or feature, as some do, I don't think there is such a thing as a "flow state." If you adhere to that working strategy, your hypothesis is that the agent is so much faster than you that you can get more done even without a flow state, even if the quality is a little worse, and your job has fundamentally changed from programmer to code reviewer. That will have its own set of skills for you to develop, such as efficiently reading their changes, managing costs and context, writing good prompts, etc.
I love building things, trying things, finding the best result that checks all the boxes, conventions, quality, etc. Not having to hand set the code is a pure net positive for me. I can discuss architecture, interfaces, data flow, data models and so on, I can let it quickly onboard me, tell me where we left of. It's great.
If everything feels fragmented after completing a feature, then you haven't driven the agent properly. You really want to yell at it from multiple angles until the output fits a narrow hole that you specify.
On the pleasure side, I can get close to the same feeling with a design and review cycle going while Claude checks in, but its not as fun. Using an inline code assistant for the “interesting” parts while Claude does all the boring scaffolding.
I think of it like any industrialization process - being a cabinet maker was meditative - overseeing ikea flatpak cnc is not.
For me, flow state can be achieved through the true multitasking that agentic coding allows. Start an agent on a task, then set up another agent for another task. While one is working, the other usually needs feedback or tweaking. I run Claude Code in yolo mode in a dev container where it can cause little damage, so I’m not wasting my time approving tool calls (or managing an allowlist of tool calls). Sometimes I hav…