Flow state

• I’m most effective with large blocks of uninterrupted time, because of that, it may seem like I’m not a fan of meetings, and will opt for async communication as default. This seems to work well when paired with ad-hoc meetings
• I do not like to multi-task, context switching is expensive for me as it takes quite some effort for me to transition into a task. While I have gotten better at it, I still tend to stay away. That’s why I like to start and take tasks to completion before taking on new stuff.
• Context switching requires re-loading state into your brain - this is just the cognitive load associated with task switching

Notifications off by default

• Notifications are off by default, I mostly work in pomodoro sessions, meaning I don’t respond to messages in real time. I like to make an optimum environment for sustained periods of flow state.

Meetings

• I don’t expect myself to write much code on meeting heavy days, because I know meetings sap quite a bit of energy out of me, and fragment the day into unusable time chunks for me.
  • Coupled with the fact that context switching can be quite expensive for me

Related reading

• 37signals - Hours aren’t equal
• Active/Sync problem solving vs ambient/async problem solving. Contiguous blocks of time allow me optimize for both, via autonomous energy management
• similar to the ‘caps’ mentioned by Martin Fowler in workflows of refactoring
• How I communicate/work
• PG’s Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule