Coder's High – The Intense Feeling of Absorption

I suspect that you get this kind of high doing a lot of things other than programming; programmers are not unique in this regard.

I'm insanely jealous of people who can do stuff like this. I hear stories of people like John Carmack locking themselves away in a room and finishing an entire project or implementing an entire feature in a night or over a weekend. In contrast it takes me days to finish anything, I just don't have the ability to concentrate or care about something that intensely.

Now I understand some stories are embellishments and someone like Carmack just thinks on a different level than most people, but is there a way to teach yourself to be able to engage in these marathon creative sessions or is it something you must be born with?

>> but is there a way to teach yourself to be able to engage in these marathon creative sessions or is it something you must be born with?

Anecdotally, I think the answer is yes. Concentration is a skill you can develop like anything else. The kind of high with programming for me is similar to that experienced when rehearsing/performing music.

I used to perform on a competitive drumline and we would have 8-10 hour rehearsals on the weekends (usually in 3 hour blocks). One of the main ideas expressed was that if you want to perform at a very high level, and do it consistently, you must always rehearse at performance levels and be hyper attentive to details. These rehearsals were mentally exhausting. But over a few months, my ability to concentrate and to quickly jump into a flow state improved dramatically.

One thing that surprised me - after rehearsing with a metronome for that many hours a day and usually at the same speed, say 120 BPM (beats per minute). When we would change speeds, faster or slower, even a 2 BPM different (118 BPM or 122 BPM) felt noticeably different than 120 BPM.

After I stopped performing that group, my ability to distinguish these small difference in tempo regressed. I can't do it anymore. A wide gap like 110 and 120 is noticeable (probably even to non-musicians), but not only a 2 beats difference.

If you want to try this yourself, get someone around you to go to http://www.webmetronome.com/ and set it to 120 BPM and 122 BPM and see if you can correctly guess which one they set it to.

In my personal experience, and from watching others, the lock-in and absorption in your work comes with a succession of tasks and exertion, towards a meditation of sorts. You don't simply "fall in" to this state, but rather makes a concerted effort in reaching it.

> is it something you must be born with?

A motivation to reach this state, to keep trying and pursuing it, may be a fact of your nature. Or, it is an understanding of what your work will create. Fame, money, fulfillment – extrinsic motivators that drive you towards a definitive conclusion.

To meditate in your work might just require you to find your motivator.

My challenge is that in my lab there are so many things that are 'calling' that staying focused is a serious challenge and I end up 'puttering' as my wife calls it. For pure software projects taking just enough to get your programming done to an otherwise pristine environment does wonders (I take a notebook with me camping where I am not distracted).

Hiding things also helps, things in the visual field that you have to work on or are interesting are literal distractions.

The sound and tactile feedback from my model-m and my instant flow CD (the lne I always listen to) is combined into a unbelivable nice feeling when I lift my fingers from the keybord after 45 minutes of coding.

The ahhhhh is like no else.