Accidentally in Code

Tag: flow

  • From Hard Focus, to Flow, to Stop

    From Hard Focus, to Flow, to Stop

    Crocodile Rock - Millport
    © Copyright Raymond Okonski and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence.

    Interesting project the past few weeks. Basically I was swapping out a large and central component to what my team is building. It was really tough, to do that and keep everything functional. Normally I ask – what is the least amount I can do to make an improvement? This time, I had to ask, what’s the most I can eliminate and still remain functional?

    A genuine challenge, and it was good for me.  The first couple of days were hard focus, and tough lessons. A day writing code that I couldn’t even compile until it was done, because it wouldn’t without everything. By 4pm I felt like my brain had bled out through my eyes, and went back to the hotel (I was in NYC) to collapse. At the end of it, I realized I had to do something else first, before I could test and check in.

    So I came back and did that. Again, by the end of the 2nd large thing I felt physically exhausted.

    Day 3 I put them together and checked in. After that I could do smaller things, figure out what wasn’t working, delete things, make small improvements. Change the way we were doing things – because we didn’t have to follow the way the replaced thing was working anymore.

    Once functional, but not beautiful, I picked a new (smaller) UI component, and replaced it with an improved version. Again – hard focus. Desperate to be distracted. It’s like a fight. With the problem – because I’m still figuring out the best way to approach things – and with myself because it’s frustrating, and difficult.

    The following week I have to do the same (UI component) thing again. By this time I’m flying – it’s flow. I’ve learned how to do things to build on each other he hard way, and this time I’m cutting CL after CL and I’m zooming. This little project is coming to an end, soon.

    But… plans change, and this little project is now obsolete. I’m completely “in the zone” and racing towards the finish, and it’s like a rug being pulled from under me. All of a sudden I’m back to asking – what next, what order. Feeling discouraged. Someone reminds me that it’s the right decision, and what I always thought was right, but somehow when I was “in flow” I forgot.

    Some observations about hard focus and flow.

    • Hard focus is hard. It’s like a fight, and I would love anyone to distract me at any time.
    • It’s also completely exhausting. 4 hours of hard focus will leave me physically and mentally exhausted.
    • Flow comes after, it’s the sweet spot before something gets boring but you know what you’re doing.
    • Still figuring out new things in flow, but it’s more like building on understanding, “oh I don’t actually need this”, or “this is neater”.
    • Things stuck on in hard focus take much longer to move forward on than in flow. In flow a tea-break will do. In hard focus it’s more like lunch or a new day.
    • Flow can last for days, effectively. I’ll get tired and stop, but I’ll come back the following day and pick right up again.
    • Hard focus is a fight every morning, even more so than the rest of the day.
    • Being derailed in the middle of flow, for whatever the reason, is horrible.
    • In hard focus, I look at my task list to decide what to do. In flow, I look at my task list to mark off things I’ve done. The next step is always so obvious.
    • I’m actually more on top of twitter etc when I’m in “flow” because I have more compile time, more waiting on submit scripts. Distractions are less interesting than what I’m doing, so they never really take me away from it.

    Anyway, what can you do? Learn from it, and move on. After a day off, I’m heading back in search of flow.

  • Drive by Daniel Pink

    Drive by Daniel Pink

    Drive
    Drive (Amazon)

    The premise of Drive is that “if-then” rewards don’t motivate us, and actually what people need are three things – Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. I.e. you want a higher reason for doing what you’re doing, be working towards mastery in the process, and have as much control as possible about when/where/how you do that.

    The cover of Drive says “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, but there wasn’t much that was shocking to me. Perhaps that’s because I’m a programmer – one profession where managers have already embraced “Motivation 3.0” (Google is held up as a shining example, IBM definitely gave EB interns a lot of autonomy).

    Pink does a good job of organizing the research around motivation, particularly I’m interested by Carol Dweck’s work on having a “growth” rather than a “fixed” mentality. With a fixed mentality, everything you achieve (or don’t achieve) is a commentary on your innate abilities. With a growth mentality, everything is a learning process.

    The pursuit of flow (coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) and the idea of “Goldilocks tasks” (tasks that are neither too difficult nor to easy – key to achieving the state flow) are interesting.

    My favorite concept is the difference between extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation means being motivated by external factors – like job title, or money. Intrinsic motivation comes from within – from enjoyment in the task, or working towards a higher purpose. People who are intrinsically motivated tend to perform better.

    In all, worth a read, but I think you can get the majority of the value from the book out of Pink’s TED talk (embedded below). But before you watch it – take the survey and determine whether you’re “Type I” or “Type X”.

    This book appealed to me at the moment because I’m feeling low on motivation with my thesis. Having read it, I’m not any more motivated, but I do have a better idea as to why – and as a result what I can do to improve things.

    I feel like what I do lacks purpose. I’m increasingly demoralized that academia is not a place that values what I find interesting. It’s started to make me question the point of what I do. The thesis is a big, intimidating thing that is freaking me out. I need to break it down into smaller subtasks that are more “Goldilocks” in nature.

    Want my copy of Drive? Tell me in the comments or on Twitter (@catehstn) and I’ll pick a winner at random and post it to you! H/T to the lovely Julie for this idea!

  • Can You Flow Your Way to Great?

    ski jump
    Credit: flickr / Shay Haas

    If you know me at all (or have just been reading my blog for a while) you’ll know I’m really interested in how to be more productive, more effective, and generally achieving more. And of course I read Zen Habits and all these other blogs that talk about flow.

    Flow is about being completely absorbed in what you’re doing. It does wonders for your productivity, and definitely, being in a state of flow is awesome – I achieve it from time to time, but nowhere near as much as I would like to.

    But I also love Study Hacks, where he writes a lot about achieving greatness, specifically (at the moment) through deliberate practice. The key to this is working on something that is hard and uncomfortable. And Seth Godin writes a lot about how you need to fail to achieve awesome.

    And I wonder, are these two things in conflict? Because thinking about skiing, I can be in a state of flow, carving down a pisted black (or blue, or green run). I can be completely absorbed in what I’m doing, and energized – it feels like I’m flying – but I’m well within my comfort zone. Does this make me a better skier? Maybe not. To be better, I have to leave my comfort zone. So I go and ski moguls because they make me uncomfortable and I’m not as good at them. The biggest break through I had as a skier, was when I decided I had to get a grip with moguls and I went and skied them again, and again, and again, until eventually I could make it down without falling over.

    Was I experiencing flow? No. I was uncomfortable, and my legs hurt, and I wasn’t having a good time. But time like that is necessary for progress. It’s a teaching technique that I use and that was used in my PDP last week – work on X on a run within your comfort zone. Then, work on it again on a run that makes you uncomfortable. Come back to the first one, see improvement in your skiing. Rinse, and repeat.

    My first release of my graphs was hacked together in an afternoon. After a morning of fighting with the software, and fighting with myself to focus.

    Right now, I should be working on a testing assignment – to do with databases. I’m not a fan of databases, so every distraction is inviting. I’m uncomfortable and bored. But, this is how I become a better programmer – by sitting down and making myself work at it until it is done.

    If we chase flow too much, we miss the moments that make us uncomfortable. But we should learn to seek out those moments, because they are what make us better, at whatever we seek to master.