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Comment by ehnto | Hacker News Reader

Minimizing context switches has been my angle after I burnt out. I automate things that take me out of context and use every last feature of my IDE to make sure I don't have to alt tab all over the place. Terminal, database, docs and code is all in my IDE. It feels more like sitting down at a specialized workstation than a general computer and it keeps me focussed and in flow. Not only is that a less stressful state of mind to work from, it also means I ultimately spend less time in work mode and I can cleanly delineate work from not-work.

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I minimise the impact of unexpected context switches by keeping a running log what I am doing or should do next in a document for each project. It might seem like a waste of time but I can safely mentally let the whole current context go when I am interrupted for an urgent job and I don't have to keep a stack of contexts in my head at once. It is especially useful in getting back up to speed in a context that had to be ignored for a week or more.

Engineering logbooks are a great idea (and electronic/mechanical engineers have been doing it for a while - because it works!).

I use a spiralbound notebook and a fountain pen for mine, because I find the change of tools helps me to think about the project I'm logging on a meta level. I tried doing it in a textfile and it didn't work so well for me, but people are different.

I've been doing this for the last few months and it really helps. In my case it's a set of OneNote grouped tabs for each story/project/etc that I'm working on. I have tabs for re-creating, background, ways to setup the environment for the task at hand, links to things that are helpful, etc.

I use the same practice and it greatly aids in reducing the congnitive energy required for context switching etc.

As someone who’s juggling 5-8 projects on any given week: this is a great idea, thanks!

I'm moving towards an approach of batch processing more things. What this means in practice is that more of my tasks use limited interactivity - e.g. "draft and redraft" vs "draft and edit". This has the effect of the "yes and" in improv, where I make errors but have to keep going regardless. Working within that mode also means that I can activate on a reflexive, pre-flow state level where I flex the project-management muscles, not the problem-solving muscles. Flow means I am challenging myself, and with so many years of experience, challenging myself means that I am overcomplicating it.

As well, I'm more likely to treat looking up docs as a research project where I copy relevant snippets of the text into one place for easier reference.

I'm still unhappy with a lot of aspects of how I code, but most of it isn't on the end of the day-to-day editing, but rather things like, "oh, I switched languages again - time to relearn the string library".

That id an interesting take on flow meaning you are overcomplicating things. That explains what was happening to me pretty well I think. I was too bored to reach a state of flow but if it were more challenging I would have been re-inventing something. I have switched domain since I burnt out which is perhaps why I can now find new challenges and be able to reach flow.

As someone who works in healthcare and has to juggle quite a bit of technical info on quite a few different active individual patients and who has also read other poster's responses above, I'm kinda taken aback that there is such a lack of higher level organization going on. Is it just something that isn't taught or that is but people just don't want or like to do?

I can only speak for software, but as an industry it doesn't have any clear framework of process at an individuals level. It's all very much left to the individual on how they organise themselves, and a lot of people (including me) never got the memo that it's something you should think about or else there can be consequences (like burn out, inefficiency). Just generally speaking the software industry is a melting pot of loose ideals when it comes to actually working. There are no regulations, no unions, no standard tooling, hell sometimes we make our own tools, set our own hours, move our own goalposts.

I think that's why software companies are often approached with quite a bit of caution by other businesses. It's not like hiring an engineering firm, where you can be pretty certain you'll get an industry standardized result.

I do similar but on OS level - I keep separate virtual machine for each project/customer and when I finish a work day I just save its state to disk to resume it intact on another one. I use Ansible to bootstrap them and each one has different color theme for an easier mental switch.

Also my host OS is my private leasure time system and of course that causes some distractions during the work day - pay bills, read about some new music band or movie.

Now I am contemplating about stripping host OS from all easy reach distractions (browser, email, side-projects) and creating dedicated private time VM.

I too am trying to sort through the fallout from endless context-switching. I wrote something (ranted) about it here. Shameless plug since it seems relevant:

https://medium.com/@justinseymour/my-head-a-clusterfuck-a8a2...

I do the same thing with studying at Uni. Having all my articles, notes, syllabi and seminar instructions in scrivener has been really effective as it means I simply open up the app I full screen and start working. Scriveners split screen layout is a life saver as it means I can take notes in a text doc while reading the article at the same time.

> every last feature of my IDE to make sure I don't have to alt tab all over the place. Terminal, database, docs and code is all in my IDE

Which IDE is this?

Let me introduce you to the song of the Emacs People.

Could be, but the features he lists are also all available in Intellij (I know because I use all of them and Intellij in the same way as he describes).

Must be. Emacs is way too large for OP to "use every last feature" of it.

Yep it's IntelliJ. Although I don't even use every last feature of the IntelliJ platform, I just try very hard to find and use features in the IDE rather than a mix of external tools. With a terminal inside the IDE, there's not really anything I would need outside the IDE window.

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