Treating even the same persons output as abstract is fraught with issues. One month a rockstar the next a schlub.
Periods of very high output, and then periods of slump. Not much of a long term stable in-between.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's very effective for the right kind of project.
Please no; we don't have to stigmatize normal waxing and waning of mental/physical energy.
There are a lot of "normal" factors involved in any Individual's productivity and pathology should be consulted only as the last resort.
These are not bipolar. The name "bipolar" is very misleading. One book I've read has called with multipolar disorder, which is far more accurate. There isn't just mania or depression. There is a whole world of possible dysfunctions that come with it: Anxiety, ADHD, insomnia, psychosis, and the list continues. There can be different moods, stages, and flavors of mania and depression in one person!
On top of this, these symptoms need to be severe enough to impair normal daily function to be diagnosed.
Before covid, I'd had 2 managers who knew something of what I was dealing with and gave me the space to deal with it and encouragement that my work was good enough often enough not to worry. With some 5+ other managers, I believe I successfully masked it and that it would have threatened my job had I failed.
In the remote world, it takes almost no work at all to manage around my work schedule. I don't even feel like I'm masking anything, just living. Weirdest part is I've now fallen into a far more social role.
Who would have thought remote work had such hidden benefits?
/...almost everyone
During the bursty periods, it affects both my creativity and the amount of work I output. I haven't found a way to trigger/force myself into this state yet. I've tried different sleeping patterns, food, sex, drugs & caffeine, different kinds of music etc, to no effect. Music has come the closest to getting me to that feeling/state.
Anyone else have more things to try?
Concerta messed me up so badly for about a week, then I stopped taking it. I want to try Vivance but it is not available in my country.
Sprints are an extraordinary effort and are by definition not sustainable. If you run a sprint, you have to recover for at least as long before returning to baseline.
I know it's just a word and doesn't literally mean to sprint, but I feel like it still subtly infects how development is viewed and approached. Even replacing it with something like "iterations" still implies that every 2-3 week period is cookie-cutter and predictable.
Rich Hickey
As an example; i was once complimented (backhanded?) as "you are brilliant but moody" :-) It really made me realize the variation in my productivity which others had picked up on.
Another example; in one project there was a real smart and knowledgeable programmer who had taken up a lot on his own shoulders. I was skeptical on whether he would be able to deliver on it and had tried to raise it diplomatically with management. Of course they didn't understand the human ramifications; result? A week before the deliverable, the guy cracked under the pressure and did not show up to work for the next two weeks. IMO, Management was squarely to blame for this since they did not understand the psyche of the people involved.