A variant (I think) of this idea that I've been using for years: when I stop coding, I jot down what I was doing, whatever problems I was dealing with, and what I felt my next steps were going to be in a little Emacs buffer.
It would probably be even smarter of me to take 20 seconds to figure out exactly the right set of Emacs tabs/frames to keep open alongside them, so when it was time to start up again, I'd get sucked right in.
A related trick I find valuable is to do the exact opposite of what the article suggests. Never finish anything at the end of your workday. Leave yourself a small mess to clean up, or some simple and finite wrapup task that you can afford to postpone. Bonus points if it's going to be fun or interesting to work on.
The idea being, it'll be much easier to get back into the groove the next day if you aren't confronted with the proverbial empty screen or blank sheet of paper the minute you walk in the door.
After you spend 30 minutes wrapping up the work from yesterday, you will already be in the zone, and it'll be easier to move ahead to the next big thing on your list.
This is related to what Kent Beck calls the "Red Test Pattern". When doing Test-Driven Development, don't stop when the last test is green and refactored; commit/push your code, and then write that next test, the one for the next functionality you want to realise. Check that it fails. Then shut down.
Next day, you'll be sucked right back in because of that damn test failing.
For me, it's also a good way to keep habitually doing TDD.
I use old-fashioned paper and pen. Keep a todo list on a page; each day-end I add/subtract and when it gets full, copy it to a new page. This makes me revisit each item, which may create associations to newer tasks that are related.
When I start from neutral, whether at start-of-day or after finishing a task, I check off what's done, then review the list to find a ripe task to launch into.
I highly encourage people to think skeptically and scientific as well using the self quantitative approach to self improvement, even when they're certain when their theory is right.
For example, I am measuring blood pressure, steps count, weight, blood sugar level, awake and sleep time everyday. I also just recently concluded that walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight or very subtle one.
In the future, when I finish my analysis, other people might decide to replicate my experiment or comes up with their own conclusion based on the data I gathered.
Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me. I like the idea of having a clean desk or clean environment though. The ugly environment in my house doesn't appears to deter me from getting things done, though.
> walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight
If you're going to change and track something to test its correlation to weight, please consider calorie intake instead.
10k steps is really not going to burn many calories (my marathon running friends use the "1 mile = 100 calories" rule of thumb). Additionally, many people starting cardio see an increase in appetite and if they are not already used to carefully controlling their food intake, end up _gaining_ weight.
Having known many people who have made the 50 lbs. fat loss goal you're looking at (and having cut 25 lbs. myself), a major diet change is likely the only thing that'll get you there. If you continue to take in enough food to sustain yourself at ~200 lbs, nothing short of training like Michael Phelps will get you down to ~150 lbs.
Just counting steps isn't very effective. You need to walk for a good long while at a time to use up your glycogen (stored sugar energy) and make your body dip into fat reserves. So if you spread out getting your steps you are less likely to do that. Similarly, there are heart rate complications. If you don't walk fast enough or throw in some interval work to get your heart rate up, you aren't getting as much exercise...
> The ugly environment in my house doesn't appears to deter me from getting things done, though.
The article is not very good at expressing its own point, unfortunately. This wasn't it.
Take periodic task A, such as making dinner or sitting down to work. You do this task on a mostly regular basis. Doing this task creates waste: a dirty sink, an unclean workspace, and so on. When you complete the task, it often seems like yet another task (B) to accomplish when tired to do the cleaning. Thus your workspace starts to degrade. The next time you need to do task A, you have to do task B first. You're psyched and ready to do task A, but you can't, because task B wasn't done. And task B is not what you're psyched for.
All the article is pointing out is that you need to do task B as soon as you're done with task A. That way, when you come back the next day to go for task A, you don't have a preliminary step to go through before you can really get started.
> Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me.
Take any such pair of tasks and measure the time it takes to get started on the task pair over the course of a decent period of time, such as a month. Try to have a balance of which task is performed first. By "time it takes to get started", I mean the the delta between the time you say, "I should do task A", and the time you actually start doing either task.
Of course, that's subject to the observer effect: noting down the time at which you say you should do it will probably in itself incentivize you. Thus, it may be helpful to regularly schedule a task pair and note the offset from the scheduled time.
I found your article interesting. A quantitative approach to health worked very well for me. I used loseit.com to track calories, macro-nutrients, and exercise. By sticking to calorie limits, eating less than 20 net grams of carbs a day, and running three times a week with Couch to 5K I have lost 90 pounds over the last 11 months. My BMI went from 38 to 24.8. I have tried to lose weight many times before, but a quantitative approach made everything much easier for me. The real test however is going to be not gaining it back. I have just accepted that counting calories is something I will have to do the rest of my life because I am completely clueless about nutrition without numbers. I think you are on the right track. Health is different for every person, and unless people objectively look at what works and doesn't work for them individually, they will have a very difficult time finding a healthy lifestyle.
This article got me thinking about places in my life where there's friction. My computer stands out as a huge source of friction. I already try to close unnecessary windows/tabs, but after reading this, I realized that, because I use it for so many different habits, my desktop fails as a friction free starting point for work.
So I've identified a few ways I use my computer and I'm setting up a user account for each one:
* coding in Ruby
* coding in Java for work
* blogs and email (and hacker news)
* personal and household maintenance
This way I can tune each desktop to the appropriate kind of work. I can eliminate clutter in the dock. I can leave the appropriate windows open without it distracting me when it's time to do something else.
If it goes well, I'll try to write it up in a blog post.
This seems a bit overkill, like trying to prevent yourself from wasting time on a site by blocking it in your hosts file. I worry it would make "mental context switches" too expensive, which might help to discourage you from wasting time on HN, but also get in the way of your work. I imagine that if I tried to separate my activities into separate accounts, I would get tired of switching users and end up with a de facto main account very quickly.
Have you looked into a virtual desktop solution yet? I use virtual desktops for very similar reasons (tuck all the real time wasters away in one desktop, put music playing controls and such in another, and use every other one for a different task), and I find it does a very good job of keeping me focused on the task at hand without getting in my way when it's time to do something else. Each one of my desktops is just two keypresses away, but there's no indication that anything is even running in any other desktop but a tiny square in the bottom right corner of my screen.
Maybe you don't even need individual user accounts - today I noticed this app to start (and close) different groups of applications. While I don't need it, this may be an alternative to your multiple account approach: http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/foreman/
A less radical approach is to use multiple screens/desktops, but all under one account. Under OSX, they're called "Spaces," and I can't remember what the Linux term is. I'm not sure if Windows has them.
At the office, I do a physical variant of this: when I'm at my desk, I'm in work mode. If I want to spend time doing personal things at the office, I'll go to another area (eg a couch). If nothing else, it's easy for me to notice when I've been there for a while. And it keeps me efficient in either mode.
I think a lot of this applies to me, I have a bad habit of leaving windows open for things I am not actively working on even though I know this can really bog me down mentally. However, while I think there is a lot of value in clearing your workspace to remove friction, someone also gave me some really good advice to help with getting started in the morning that is a little bit contradictory. The advice is to leave something partially finished that you can easily get right back into it when you get back to work. Sometimes the act of starting something new can be too much to overcome first thing in the morning, and then you get sidetracked. If you leave something ready to go that you can easily do, it can help you get into work mode immediately.
Deliberately leaving some piece of low-hanging fruit at the end of a session so that it's there to pick up at the beginning of the next session is a really good idea.
I think leaving breadcrumbs for yourself can be a great way to reduce friction. The challenge for me has been when I wake up and I find that I've left myself a bunch of breadcrumbs for several different tasks.
I've found the best way for me to jump into something is to leave vim open to the very project I'm on--even if I'm midtask. I wouldn't want to close all the windows, as that would make it harder to start the next day.
These seem to be all points for the ADHD/OCD set, which does not include everyone. Clutter doesn't bother me, not in my sink, not on my desk, not on my desktop. I can't work, because I have too many things in my home that are more fun than work.
I'm a big fan of Asian Efficiency, I read a similar article years ago (maybe it's the same one?). Clearing to neutral has definitely given me positive results.
[+] [-] tptacek|13 years ago|reply
It would probably be even smarter of me to take 20 seconds to figure out exactly the right set of Emacs tabs/frames to keep open alongside them, so when it was time to start up again, I'd get sucked right in.
[+] [-] CamperBob2|13 years ago|reply
The idea being, it'll be much easier to get back into the groove the next day if you aren't confronted with the proverbial empty screen or blank sheet of paper the minute you walk in the door.
After you spend 30 minutes wrapping up the work from yesterday, you will already be in the zone, and it'll be easier to move ahead to the next big thing on your list.
[+] [-] naglfar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] skrebbel|13 years ago|reply
Next day, you'll be sucked right back in because of that damn test failing.
For me, it's also a good way to keep habitually doing TDD.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|13 years ago|reply
When I start from neutral, whether at start-of-day or after finishing a task, I check off what's done, then review the list to find a ripe task to launch into.
[+] [-] kiba|13 years ago|reply
I highly encourage people to think skeptically and scientific as well using the self quantitative approach to self improvement, even when they're certain when their theory is right.
For example, I am measuring blood pressure, steps count, weight, blood sugar level, awake and sleep time everyday. I also just recently concluded that walking 10K steps have almost no effect on my weight or very subtle one.
http://kibabase.com/articles/self-quantification#interventio...
In the future, when I finish my analysis, other people might decide to replicate my experiment or comes up with their own conclusion based on the data I gathered.
Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me. I like the idea of having a clean desk or clean environment though. The ugly environment in my house doesn't appears to deter me from getting things done, though.
[+] [-] larsberg|13 years ago|reply
If you're going to change and track something to test its correlation to weight, please consider calorie intake instead.
10k steps is really not going to burn many calories (my marathon running friends use the "1 mile = 100 calories" rule of thumb). Additionally, many people starting cardio see an increase in appetite and if they are not already used to carefully controlling their food intake, end up _gaining_ weight.
Having known many people who have made the 50 lbs. fat loss goal you're looking at (and having cut 25 lbs. myself), a major diet change is likely the only thing that'll get you there. If you continue to take in enough food to sustain yourself at ~200 lbs, nothing short of training like Michael Phelps will get you down to ~150 lbs.
[+] [-] lnanek2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saraid216|13 years ago|reply
The article is not very good at expressing its own point, unfortunately. This wasn't it.
Take periodic task A, such as making dinner or sitting down to work. You do this task on a mostly regular basis. Doing this task creates waste: a dirty sink, an unclean workspace, and so on. When you complete the task, it often seems like yet another task (B) to accomplish when tired to do the cleaning. Thus your workspace starts to degrade. The next time you need to do task A, you have to do task B first. You're psyched and ready to do task A, but you can't, because task B wasn't done. And task B is not what you're psyched for.
All the article is pointing out is that you need to do task B as soon as you're done with task A. That way, when you come back the next day to go for task A, you don't have a preliminary step to go through before you can really get started.
> Although how one could test the idea proposed in the blog is unclear to me.
Take any such pair of tasks and measure the time it takes to get started on the task pair over the course of a decent period of time, such as a month. Try to have a balance of which task is performed first. By "time it takes to get started", I mean the the delta between the time you say, "I should do task A", and the time you actually start doing either task.
Of course, that's subject to the observer effect: noting down the time at which you say you should do it will probably in itself incentivize you. Thus, it may be helpful to regularly schedule a task pair and note the offset from the scheduled time.
[+] [-] Gorgias|13 years ago|reply
Anyway, good luck with your experiment!
[+] [-] scott_s|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antidoh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattraibert|13 years ago|reply
So I've identified a few ways I use my computer and I'm setting up a user account for each one:
This way I can tune each desktop to the appropriate kind of work. I can eliminate clutter in the dock. I can leave the appropriate windows open without it distracting me when it's time to do something else.If it goes well, I'll try to write it up in a blog post.
[+] [-] ANTSANTS|13 years ago|reply
Have you looked into a virtual desktop solution yet? I use virtual desktops for very similar reasons (tuck all the real time wasters away in one desktop, put music playing controls and such in another, and use every other one for a different task), and I find it does a very good job of keeping me focused on the task at hand without getting in my way when it's time to do something else. Each one of my desktops is just two keypresses away, but there's no indication that anything is even running in any other desktop but a tiny square in the bottom right corner of my screen.
[+] [-] thirdsun|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|13 years ago|reply
Physical separation has been great. It makes it much easier for me to remember which context I'm in, and it makes context switches obvious.
[+] [-] scott_s|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glasser|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charliepark|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarah2079|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattraibert|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Evbn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kailden|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gathly|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shakeel_mohamed|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taybin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3rd3|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjhughes|13 years ago|reply
Nike nailed it: Just do it.
[+] [-] Evbn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aw3c2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anotherbadlogin|13 years ago|reply
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