I usually just write one sentence in english right in the code where I had been typing. The next day, the compiler points me directly to it and I can pick up where I left off fairly easily. It makes it easier to stop at any time, easier to leave-it-at-work, and easier to start the next day.
Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
81–90 of 105 posts
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#82I wonder how often this nugget of wisdom is rediscovered and passed on, in every field – I remember learning it as a kid from an autobiography of Roald Dahl, who in turn learned it from Hemingway...
> I never come back to a blank page; I always finish about halfway through. Hemingway taught me the finest trick : “When you are going good, stop writing.” You don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? You make yourself stop and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next. > [1]
[1] https://www.writingforums.com/threads/hemingways-curious-tri...
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#83I usually just write one sentence in english right in the code where I had been typing. The next day, the compiler points me directly to it and I can pick up where I left off fairly easily. It makes it easier to stop at any time, easier to leave-it-at-work, and easier to start the next day.
And I thought I was a weirdo for doing it, I just discovered it's "normal".
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#84I do something similar, where I paint myself an arrow for the next session. I don’t stop at the hardest part (which feels like procrastination), but after completing it and making my commit, I will often leave my working tree dirty with a TODO comment describing what is the next step, potentially along with some other comments that just say “modify here” at the relevant places. This way, when I run “git status” next session, I see exactly what I thought I needed to do next and where exactly I thought it needed to be done.
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#85I don't like this tip at all. I get the sentiment, getting started is the HARDEST part of the day for me. But if I can finish something now, why wait until tomorrow? It's a golden rule sort of thing. I'm imagining the HR person saying, "It will only take a few minutes to fix this for you, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow". Examples are endless. There are better ways to get myself going in the morning, than to leav…
> if I can finish something now, why wait until tomorrow? The end-of-day-just-one-more fix is likely to be lower-quality than the fresh-start-after-a-good-night’s-sleep fix.
I'm exactly the opposite. All the functions and data structures are fresh in my head. The end-of-the-code is high quality.
First-code-of-the-day is much more likely to be buggy for me because I still haven't reloaded all the content into my brain.
(Unless I'm starting something from scratch, in which case start-of-the-day is great, but how often is that happening?)
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#86The part about finding a "sticking point" is really important - if you know what's next, you can pick up the context rather easily and get going. If you end the day feeling confused or not sure how to approach the next problem, it's going to be rough coming back to it.
I normally write uncommitted comments of what I need to work on next, e.g. a to-do for the next day
git lets you edit history so I commit those comments and clean it up later
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#87Good technique!
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#88I heard this advocated by TDD (Test Driven Development) practitioners.
Normal cycle is
1. Write test that will fail or not compile 2. Run it 3. Write code to make it pass 4. Refactor 5. Go to 1
When you are ready to go home, go after #2.
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#89this is great productivity hack, but personally i'd rather sacrifice the productivity and finish the workday (or even just go for lunch) feeling like i've finished something.
You are missing the point. Finish what you doing, but then start the next item, and leave it unfinished. Whatever you do, leave something unfinished for you to finish tomorrow.
Re: Leave work slightly unfinished for easier flow the next day
#90> 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 hav…
> 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. This works, but also needs some notes with a "dump" (on the previous afternoon) of all relevant points. For some subtle bugs and comp…
It’s a lot of fun leaving notes. When I’m working in the office and the next day is a WFH day I ssh in to my home computer and write my notes in a text file in the home directory. It feels like I am reaching through the computer to my desk at home.