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Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

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Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#31

Post by Atrine »

> Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

Years ago a sr. eng on my team would find root causes to bugs late in the afternoon and then just go home. When asked why, they said that they knew exactly what they were going to do first thing in the morning and that it got them straight into the flow state for the rest of the day.

I like this example better because understanding a root cause and not having it fixed is more concrete than "slightly unfinished" which is too vague for me to measure.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#32

Post by QuercusMax »

gowld wrote: post #20
worldsayshi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best thing in that situation is usually to empty your brain of the seemingly important observations you've made and then sleep on it.

Unless emptying your brain helps you forget.

I interpret "emptying your brain" to mean "writing things down so you don't have to remember them tomorrow". This probably helps you remember, but without the stress of worrying about forgetting.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#33

Post by QuercusMax »

k__ wrote: post #14

For me, this only leads to sleepless nights.

Do you leave yourself enough breadcrumbs that you can pick things back up in the morning? What's causing you sleepless nights? I find it helps me sleep better as I know I've dumped the context out of my brain and don't need to put effort into retaining it until I can get back to the task at hand.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#35

Post by wharvle »

floydnoel wrote: post #11

Actual title is "4 simple software engineering habits that transformed my productivity" Using keyboard shortcuts is one of the four. I've been using keyboard shortcuts since I was a child! I can scarcely imagine programming without them. It would be like removing half my fingers or something in terms of detrimental effects. Could somebody even get to a high level in software engineering skills without them? I'm curio…

I get by with what's probably about a mid-tier-power-user level of keyboard shortcut knowledge. 50ish? Counting some Mac special-character chord (like em-dash)?

I can't really think faster than I can mouse, anyway. I forget any shortcut I don't use more-or-less daily.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#36

Post by al_borland »

This was something Hemingway did. He'd stop writing mid-sentence when he knew where things were going, so he could pick up and continue on the next day.

"Learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it. I always worked until I had something done, and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day." — Ernest Hemingway

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#37

Post by maximinus_thrax »

Atrine wrote: post #30

> I said no to low-impact tasks. This oversimplification is terrible advice. I've seen many people refuse "low impact" work that's just flat out required for things to operate. Talking about keeping systems stable, working on tickets while they are on-call, and generally doing things that make work easily transferrable to others. These people that "refuse low impact work" end up being terrible teammates a lot of the…

> people that "refuse low impact work" end up being terrible teammates a lot of the time.

yes, but there's a high chance they'll climb the corporate ladder way faster, while not caring about being great teammates because this is not a requirement for advancement. Actually, dumping this on someone else's lap [0] should be on the list of things to do if you want to move up from loser to sociopath [1].

[0] https://hedgehoglibrarian.com/2023/08/14/executive-function-...

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#38

Post by itishappy »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #9

Productivity should always be to fulfill a terminal goal that ideally should excite and benefit you. If you are being productive just for the sake of it, or to get an employer off your back, you’re doing something wrong. I made this mistake in my early 20s. If you do the above you don’t need any tricks. You just follow your curiosity, excitement, and obsession. If you’re not excited by the end goals then you will nev…

I disagree pretty strongly with this. Who gets excited about data entry, invoices, warehouses and shipments, documentation, sanitation, etc.?

Games designed purely for excitement hold my attention for a month or two before I need a break. After about 8 years of playing more Factorio than anything else I am at 1800 hours. How on earth can anybody maintain excitement on a single thing for 2000 hours a year, every year? Don't get me wrong, I'm excited by things my company does, but my day job involves a lot of boring necessities. I strongly suspect this is true of most jobs.

I obsessively chase my curiosity and excitement in my spare time, and I have a pile of unfinished projects to show for it.

I love the sentiment, I just feel it's not reality for most.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#39

Post by bigstrat2003 »

floydnoel wrote: post #11

Actual title is "4 simple software engineering habits that transformed my productivity" Using keyboard shortcuts is one of the four. I've been using keyboard shortcuts since I was a child! I can scarcely imagine programming without them. It would be like removing half my fingers or something in terms of detrimental effects. Could somebody even get to a high level in software engineering skills without them? I'm curio…

Of course they could. The bottleneck in programming is not how quickly you can enter text.

Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day

#40

Post by alentred »

PreachSoup wrote: post #16

It really depends. This is just one of the tools that might or might not for you. I think it's more important to know your goal and yourself. In this case, you want to increase your productivity. As long as you can reach your goal, it's good enough. Personally it doesn't work well for me because I need clean separations from work and be in the prolonged work mode would cause burnout. I have no problem to get started…

I am with you on this one. I, for my part, cannot stop unless I finish some logical subset of the work. Leaving the work incomplete or with bugs would make me sleep worse, and I would spend lots of time the next day trying to understand what I was trying to achieve. Even more so in hobby projects, where I might come back in a couple of days or weeks.

What I do, though, is leaving a TODO where I think I need to continue the next time. Works wonders for me.

In the end, I think it is about leaving some kind of an "anchor", but the exact kind depends on your personality I guess.

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