Software problems require a lot of research, planning, execution, and quality assurance. All four stages require focus and deep thinking. When a software developer gets distracted at any stage, going back into “the zone” or “the flow” demands a lot of work. In socially isolated times, it is easy to find ourselves trying to catch up with every piece of information to feel more productive. There might be kids running at home while there is an IDE open on the screen. Maybe there is no one to bother during coding, but our mind is nudged to check the phone or Slack all the time so that we don’t miss out on anything or feel alone.
For a while, I’ve been thinking, reading, and analyzing the situation I’m in. I have many things that I want to change. Yet, I also lacked how to approach these changes. That’s why I’ve been reading Atomic Habits for a while. It taught me that learning how to change behaviors and stick to the habits that I want to have in my life. One of them is improving how I work. When I took a look at my work setup, I found myself in a Hyperactive Hive Mind, as Cal Newport explains in his latest book, A World Without Email:
“The Hyperactive Hive Mind: A workflow centered around ongoing conversation fueled by unstructured and unscheduled messages delivered through digital communication tools like email and instant messenger services.”
Not having deep-focused work and having the mindset of artificial productivity create negative affectivity. This problem is not novel and not new to me as, well. Some time ago, after reading Deep Work from Cal Newport, I tried changing my work to have deep working hours. It helped me work in a flow that I lacked (and complained about) for a long time. As time passed and the pandemic hit, these flows faded away, and I was not sticking to them a lot.
Currently, I’m not 100% actively coding, and empty spaces in my work calendar vanish every week, along with my deep working time. When I look at my statistics for March 2021, I spent 26 hours on Slack, 22 Hours on Google Meet, ~4 hours on Zoom, ~4 hours on Gmail, and ~4 hours juggling on my calendar. These stats give me a clear sign of a Hyperactive Hive Mind that I want to get rid of.
Changing habits requires a little bit of preparation. As a start, I blocked Deep Hours in my calendar. I will spend these deep hours on the computer or walking. If my work doesn’t require a computer, I plan to go for deep walks to think about a subject or solve a problem. I’m starting to say “No” to ad-hoc meetings if it’s not urgent. (I use the trick of asking people, “when do you need this work/talk to be done?” and it magically works.) These are just small strategies that I am adding to my routine and improving on the way.
If you want to increase your deep working hours in your workflow like me, here are some suggestions I’ve seen work:
- Block focus time on your calendar. Plan it, don’t decide on the go. When the events are visible on your calendar, and you see them all the time, you will be more inclined to apply them. If you find recurring timeframes, you can set the calendar to repeat the events automatically. Make these events visible to everyone and reject other meetings during this timeframe.
- Turn off every notification on your phone and computer. (Put your phone upside down in another room. Take off your smartwatch if you have one) Log out from all social media websites on your computer browser. I have been living without social media notifications for a long time, and it’s one of the best decisions I have made.
- Close Slack, Telegram, Discord, or whatever messaging app you use. Don’t worry if your team or boss complains. You can kindly say sorry (or not) by explaining that you were focusing on the task to produce a great result. I’m sure that they will understand. If you use the Focus feature of RescueTime and combine it with Zapier to trigger focus time when you have a calendar event. In that case, you can even automatically block distracting apps and websites thanks to RescueTime. Have a system that automatically works for you. The goal is to reduce the effort of going into deep work.
- Choose tasks that you can finish in one deep work session. If your work requires a significant amount of time, slice it down and work on them one by one. Don’t overload yourself. At the end of each session, you should be able to have an achievement. Pick tasks you can finish in one sitting.
- Make your table tidy or put something nice on your desk before starting your deep work. Beautiful environments can help us to stick to what we’re doing. The trick is to choose something that will make the session attractive and joyful.
- Put an X on your calendar or make a stack of legos on your table. It doesn’t matter what you do; the visual presentation of your progress will nudge you to do it one more time constantly. You can also use the “don’t break the chain” strategy or any other similar idea. Have a system where you see the progress.
Try doing it once or twice a week in the beginning. Keep in mind that you cannot have deep work for the entire day. If you can have three sessions (each 1-2 hours) a day, that’s great.
These are all examples; find what you can do and adjust them to your needs. I hope these strategies will help you as they helped my colleagues and me. How are your deep working hours? What are your methods in your working style? Just hit reply and send them to me. I’m still improving my work and would love to hear your ideas. :)
Now, onto what happened in the last month.
I wrote seven blog posts and recorded two podcast episodes.
☝Three Articles and One Book I Recommend Reading
Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend
🔖 Article Link
This article is old but gold. It’s one of the posts I read time-to-time. Writing code that’s deletable or changeable in the first place is a mindset to have when you grow in your career. Truly understanding and accepting that the code will change or be deleted helps to approach problems differently.
How to Become a Better Developer by Asking Questions
🔖 Article Link
In my coaching sessions, I often see that people hesitate to ask questions. Juniors especially have a difficult time when their senior colleagues have a high work backlog. Steve talks about how you should form the questions in different setups. Some questions are better to ask colleagues, but that’s not all. Yet, one behavior that is required in all questions is you need to prepare before asking.
How People Learn to Become Resilient
🔖 Article Link
Resilience is not something you have; it’s something you learn. In the middle of the pandemic, resilience is often overused, and people think that they are resilient or not. However, reflecting on the events happening at work and in my personal life is learnable. The research mentioned in the article shows that our resilience is defined by how we perceive possible traumatic events. The decisive point is how we frame them: an opportunity to learn or a threat.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
📚 Book Link
I read this book in the Fall of 2020. At that time, I was recovering from burnout, and I was keen on changing my work style. Being in the flow state that Csikszentmihalyi talks about were missing in my work for a long time. It’s also not only work; our lives are filled with constant distractions that we cannot focus on anything anymore. The average number of mobile push notifications in the US is 46 per day, and on top, we have distractions caused by YouTube, Twitch, and Netflix. After reading Deep Work, I decided to change my life a little bit. It’s a work in progress, but I’m way happier than before. I recommend you think about how distracted you are and whether you want to change it or not. If you have the same feelings as me, get this book. If not, that’s great; keep going!
That’s it. If you have any strategies to improve the quality of your work, I’m all ears. :)
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