No, not now.
Being a world-class procrastinator and how to overcome it
Actually, ironically I have been staring at this Title-Subtitle combo for waaaaay too long. Tabbing away, and then finding my way back. Mostly distracted by important stuff like a call for help from one of my little ones but a lot also because my fingers took too long to start writing a damn first sentence. Just now, one of my youngest wanted to make sure I know that her brother has 2 drinks and her sister also has one and she had none. Even though she knows she can get the drinks herself.
Anyhoo…
Before you start rage commenting: Don’t I have more important things to attend, like my children?? No not perse- they are very capable these days of playing by themselves, with each other or friends in the communal garden. As long as they get a healthy dose of attention, getting help coloring or picking out their clothes or playtime with daddy, the rest of the time- they are free to fill on their own.
Back to the main story.
When I’m not in a flow state I procrastinate. It usually starts innocently but quickly turns into a deep rabbit hole dive into some nonsensical topic that has no benefit to my work or personal development.
When I’m in a flow state I can write up page after page without stopping. And since I am pretty fast typer the article, blog, technical writeup, or anything else is usually quickly finished as a first draft. So the biggest enemy of flow state is the Single Interruption.
the biggest enemy of flow state is the Single Interuption
The Single Interruption
As a developer, (as anything basically) it is the single most dangerous thing to my flow state and the primary distractor. Compiling a build. It’s the perfect time to tab away to something else. Your build is running, no coding can be done (sometimes we can, but it doesn’t feel right of course) - you open up the tab containing Medium or Reddit and it means the end of your flow. Sometimes we build multiple times a minute so what really helps here are ways to minimize that build time. Minimize the time away from your primary work.
But it could also be that single quick question that a co-worker fires off. Or that one Slack message. After that, it’s back to procrastination land.
So match your gear to the way you work.
I noticed the build times on my machine (Humble Macbook Pro) are increasing as of late. And I notice it has an effect on my flow during development. And since I’m a contractor, that time is my client's time too. I have opted to lease a new desktop. Since my work will primarily be done remotely in the future. I can opt for a beast of a desktop now to make sure that build times are kept to a minimum. I can only do so much in optimizing the builds themselves. So, sometimes you just have to scale up. My Macbook will be cleaned up and will only run whatever I need for the clients I currently work for so when I need to do a presentation or come in for the day, I can take my laptop, but my primary workhorse will be my desktop.
Refinement comes later
It is easy for a developer to get lost in making sure that your code looks and is optimized as best as it can be. But sometimes — nay I would say most of the time it’s a glorious waste of time. And iterating back onto something that you already developed is best left until the end. Just before committing your code into the repository for instance.
Write now, edit later.
The same goes with writing. Write now, edit later. That is what works for me. If I start editing, fixing typos, and rephrasing sentences when I’m doing my creative writing it gets me out of the flow real quick. So I will leave it until when I’m done. I also mute Grammarly. All those red lines (spoiler alert: there are many in my case) are a huge distraction and are basically screaming to be handled immediately.
Single task.
Thinking you can do multiple tasks in parallel as efficiently as single tasks in series is a fallacy. It is just not true. It might look like you get more done, but in the end, the work delivered will not be as good as if you would have focussed on that single task until the end. So it will require rework. If you need to task switch. Stow away the task you were working on, plan it at a later date, or commit completely to the new task first. Of course, this doesn’t work all the time- but that doesn’t mean that the strategy doesn’t work.
When you have to do deep work. Create an environment where you have the least amount of distractions, from your family, colleagues. But also close your tabs with Reddit, Medium, Twitter, etc., put your phone away, and turn off your notifications. Emergency calls from the family will get through when you put them on VIP. Anything else can wait. I know it sounds super obvious. But it’s not. Even having a tab open with Medium is a dangerous thing when it comes to a potential distraction.
Divide and conquer
Divide big tasks up into small tasks. Again sounds truly obvious but sometimes you have a big task on your to-do list that you are constantly putting off doing because it just feels like too much work right now. If you segment that task into the smallest task possible (not smaller) then ticking off small tasks becomes a game. A game where the end boss is your finished product/item/article etc. And getting started on a very small task is so much easier and when you're done, you can decide to continue with the next- or pick up something else.
This works only when you have a system in place for your to-do‘s. This can be truly anything. most Todo apps will work. Don’t overanalyze. You only need a place to jot down things that you need to do and check them off when your done, maybe just a single to-do list of the things you are going to do today. Pen and paper work. Something like Trello which is free for the most part also works
Conclusion
During the writing of this article, I got distracted no little than 25 times. Probably double that even. I did however get it done because I let myself get distracted knowing I would come back to this article right away. Because when I sit down again, the only thing open was this story draft. I closed everything else and made sure my Medium story was front and center. When I need to research I open up another tab, and close it when I’m done. I didn’t have a task written down tho. Sometimes, maybe counterintuitively doing something else like tending to the children, or putting in laundry doesn’t mean you lost your flow. For me, flow state is having focus on a particular task (in order to finish it) as long as I can come back to and pick it up right away, it is easier to get going again.
So. Now Reddit, what have I missed.
