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Ask HN: Tips for staying focused during dev cycle interruptions

by aprinsen on 1/19/23, 5:00 PM with 2 comments

We've all been there: waiting for brew, waiting for a CI pipeline, running the full integration suite, xcode doing anything at all.

What's your useful advice for staying "on task" when your dev cycle is peppered with 15-120 second interruptions?

Of course where possible we should pour effort into minimizing these interruptions but for this question I'm talking mental tricks etc.

  • by AnimalMuppet on 1/19/23, 5:17 PM

    Don't surf the net. Don't read HN. Don't fire up a game. Those things are going to make you switch mental context twice (once each way). Instead, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

    (Says the guy who, instead, sees what's new on HN...)

  • by revskill on 1/19/23, 5:22 PM

    You need better programming language ?

    Per my experience, choosing a "productive language" matters.

    For example, working with Javascript/Typescript is not productive, because it's easy for me to lose focus on other things.