Inter-sections.net : Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Tore Darell

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:33:27 +0000

Man, I probably checked my email/twitter/greader five times just while reading this. I enjoyed the article, but my inability to concentrate enough to get through it in one go is, I guess, a symptom of my hyperbrain.

You briefly mention that you’ve “stopped fighting it”, which is probably the one thing I’ve found to increase my productivity the most. I’m not a morning person; I hate mornings. In the first few hours of the day my brain is foggy, I can’t put together a coherent sentence and am as pleasant to be around as uranium. I tried becoming a morning person for years until I just stopped fighting it. Now I’ve adapted my work day so that I can spend the most productive part of it on work, and I get much more done that way.

Also, I agree that the term multitasking is a bit misleading. Like a CPU, the brain doesn’t really multitask, it switches back and forth. If you can just stretch the interval so that each encompasses a “closeable” task, there’s no need to maintain a state when switching. I guess the real problem then is to divide your tasks into smaller tasks that are small enough to be compatible with “multitasking”.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Harry B. Garland

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:39:01 +0000

I wonder what it is that causes such distractions. I feel like I’m distracted because my brain is always asking for more to chew on. If I’m doing something that does not enough socializing then I gravitate towards distractions that involve being social. If I’m doing too much trench-work, I gravitate towards distractions that enable me to be involved with big picture more. If I’m doing too much Controller programming, I gravitate towards making the View work better, even when it isn’t a priority.

I wonder if one possible key to avoiding distractions is to find work where there is always value in talking about the project, coding the project; projects where it is important to do implementation and design; projects where it is important to get the Controller and the View just right. Then, I can keep alternating which parts of my brain are engaged by switching between completely different types of tasks. This way, my mind doesn’t feel a deficiency in any one section for too long.

Just a thought.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Dan

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:39:10 +0000

I wonder if it would be useful to have a small timer program that you could click on, and/or use some key combination to trigger. If you didn’t tell the timer you were done with the task, once 15 minutes were reached it could “go off” and tell you to roll back whatever you were working on.

Anyone know of any Mac apps that do something like this?

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Daniel(@inter-sections)

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:42:47 +0000

Hi Dan,

Yep, I used something called FlexTime for that purpose.

http://www.lifeclever.com/flextime-growl-a-gentle-way-to-end-procrastination/ provides a useful tutorial for how to get it working to decrease procrastination.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Daniel(@inter-sections)

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:39:40 +0000

On the subject of rolling back, I found this interesting article too:

http://railstips.org/2008/6/10/programmers-should-give-up-more-often

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Jonathan M

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:25:15 +0000

Thanks for another great article..

One thing I am wondering, how would you apply closed tasks to go from a plan / outline, to the task level? For instance, writing a large program or a book?

In a waterfall type method, you would spend a lot of time planning out the tasks, but what inevitably happens is that the closed tasks are not fully defined or correct, and you have to redefine your tasks half-way through (unless its something that you are very experienced at). So, re-planning gets in the way of completing closed tasks - the overhead is in the constant re-planning.

On the other hand, in a more iterative method, you just complete closed task after closed task, with maybe only the next task or two in mind. But then you may just end up with a mess of a project that needs to be ‘refactored’ several times - which gets overwhelming with a complex project. The overhead is in the constant correction.

What is the balance to do either of the following: a) be able to envision a great output and focus / work on the closed task level or b) complete closed task after closed task and then be able to continually improve this body of work?

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by daniel

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:49:13 +0000

Hi Jonathan,

The “Keep tasks closed” approach can apply to any planning methodology, since it’s on a per-task level - on a micro level, if you will. Whether you have an 18-months day-by-day plan or you’re playing it by ear, you still end up having to do specific tasks one at a time. The aim of this technique is to ensure that you personally don’t end up losing yourself in one or several of these tasks, not to ensure that the right tasks are being done.

Basically, you can think of this as an extreme version of agile development applied on a task by task basis, if you consider each task to be a project and each “close” to be a release. You want to keep releasing as often as you can, and keep each iteration small.

By the way, the fifteen minutes suggestion is just the way I work. For others, thirty minutes or even two hours might be a better timeframe.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Kevin

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:52:17 +0000

Hi Daniel, I love your articles, will there be a part 4?

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by daniel

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:54:41 +0000

Absolutely. I’m still working on it, hang in there. I do have a start-up to build up at the same time, and this week’s been particularly hectic! I’m planning to get part 4 out tomorrow, but will make sure it’s out by Thursday at the latest.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Kyle

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:41:33 +0000

Seriously? 15 min? How can any reasonably-sized refactoring get done in 15min?

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by daniel

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:46:58 +0000

Kyle: You don’t do the whole refactoring in 15 minutes, you just break it down into 15-minutes-max chunks, one chunk at a time. The key is that the task should be closed at the end of each chunk - i.e. you should be able to walk away from it without negative side-effects. The overall refactoring could take a week, but since you can’t count on being focused on it for the whole week, you need to minimise the damage from being distracted.

Comment on Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed by Alex

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:54:09 +0000

I am definitely in this category of people, but I have found that music is a great tool for keeping me focused. Particularly music that is very samey. If I am listening to music, I can often go hours working on the same thing, even if it’s not something I’m that interested in, but that I know has to get done. It seems to help keep my mind on track. Also the headphones help too as then I can’t hear the conversation in the cube next door that could be so juicy and interesting.