## Distractions
-Life is full of distractions. So many things want our attention, and many of these distractions are outside of our control. Someone enters our work-space and needs our attention at that moment. An email thread that we thought was settled becomes a heated discussion and our attention is drawn to it. Something happens at home and now our mind is split between worrying about our work tasks and worrying about what's happening at home. Whatever the cause may be there are times when our attention isn't where we want it to be and we feel pulled in every direction at once.
+Life is full of distractions. So many things want our attention, and many of these distractions are outside of our control. Someone enters our work-space and needs our attention at that moment. An email thread that we thought was settled becomes a heated discussion and our attention is drawn to it. Something happens at home and now our minds are split between worrying about our work tasks and worrying about what's happening at home. Whatever the cause may be, there are times when our attention isn't where we want it to be and we feel pulled in every direction at once.
-This is when the containers are most helpful. If something interrupts the container we can determine if it's more important than the work we're doing. If we determine that it is more important than what we're currently doing we can stop the container with the understanding that we'll return to the work once we've handled the interruption. If the interruption is not more important then we can agree (both with whomever is interrupting us, or with ourselves) that our focus needs to be here with the work until the container ends. We'll be able to give that disruption our full attention once the container ends. We'll won't try to split our attention between the work and the interruption, rather we'll give each of them our full attention at the appropriate time.
+This is when the containers are most helpful. If something interrupts the container we can determine if it's more important than the work we're doing. If we determine that it is more important than what we're currently doing we can stop the container with the understanding that we'll return to the work once we've handled the interruption. If the interruption is not more important then we can agree (both with whomever is interrupting us, or with ourselves) that our focus needs to be here with the work until the container ends. We'll be able to give that disruption our full attention once the container ends. We won't try to split our attention between the work and the interruption, rather we'll give each of them our full attention at the appropriate time.
-This method creates a simple delineation between our work and the rest of the world. But just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Keeping the delineation between our work and the outside world can be challenging, especially if the culture you're in is about immediate results.
+This method creates a simple delineation between our work and the rest of the world, but just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Keeping the delineation between our work and the outside world can be challenging, especially if the culture you're in is about immediate results.
-I don't have good answers if the culture you're in demands your attention at all times. The best I can offer is a containerized approach that gives you at least some periods of undisturbed concentration. But if you feel on-guard all the time because something might happen at any moment then you're going to remain less effective than if you can shut the world off for a bit. I'd also challenge you to examine if that perception is really true; are you constantly being ambushed by interruptions? Testing that theory may be in order. Keep a log (whether it's a sheet of paper, text file, spreadsheet, or database is up to you) of when you did a focus container and if that container was interrupted or not. If you find that you are getting interrupted more often than not then you need to determine what is causing the interruption and assess if it's something that you can control. There are many ways to handle and minimize workplace distractions that I won't go into here but being aware of the distractions and determining where they are coming from will be key to figuring out how to mitigate them in the future.
+I don't have good answers if the culture you're in demands your attention at all times. The best I can offer is a containerized approach that gives you at least some periods of undisturbed concentration. If you feel on-guard all the time because something might happen at any moment then you're going to remain less effective than if you can shut the world off for a bit. I'd also challenge you to examine whether that perception is really true; are you constantly being ambushed by interruptions? Testing that theory may be in order. Keep a log (whether it's a sheet of paper, text file, spreadsheet, or database is up to you) of when you did a focus container and if that container was interrupted or not. If you find that you are getting interrupted more often than not then you need to determine what is causing the interruption and assess if it's something that you can control. There are many ways to handle and minimize workplace distractions that I won't go into here, but being aware of the distractions and determining where they are coming from will be key to figuring out how to mitigate them in the future.
Also be aware of the self-imposed distractions you've added to your life. Do you need immediate notification that someone liked something you shared? Is the funny anecdote you just remembered important enough to warrant switching out of your current context so you can post it to your friends and colleagues? Do you really need something to pop up in your field of view to let you know that your music player changed a track? Are you willing to sacrifice your attention and flow throughout the day because a program detected a change in your environment, regardless of the importance of that change?
-We add these distractions into our lives because we worry that we might miss something important. Programs also come configured with most of their notifications turned on so a user can be reminded of the status of the program at all times. Perhaps it's useful but for me they are very distracting. In my career I've sat at the desks of many other folks and have cringed at the number of notifications they receive in the short period was there (usually the span of ten minutes or less). And I've seen folks interrupt their current line of thinking because a notification for a message unrelated to the current task distracted them. What happened to the original thought? They had to mentally switch back to it and remember where they left off (usually at great mental effort).
+We add these distractions into our lives because we worry that we might miss something important. Programs also come configured with most of their notifications turned on so a user can be reminded of the status of the program at all times. Perhaps it's useful, but for me they are very distracting. In my career I've sat at the desks of many other folks and have cringed at the number of notifications they receive in the short I period was there (a span of ten minutes or less). I've seen folks interrupt their current line of thinking because a notification for a message unrelated to the current task distracted them. What happened to the original thought? They had to mentally switch back to it and remember where they left off, usually at great mental effort.
-I challenge you to turn off as many notifications as you can and get a taste of what your experience is like without them. That may be as simple as closing out an application when you're done with it, or may be as complex as changing the settings so an application doesn't notify you when new messages arrive. You'll need to play with this and see what works best for your needs and concentration. A good rule of thumb is "what is important enough to warrant me dropping my important work and focusing on this thing?". If you can scale your notifications so that only the most time-critical notifications reach you at the appropriate time then you'll be better able to relax and focus into your work. You won't have to parse the notifications to determine if what you're seeing is important or not.
+I challenge you to turn off as many notifications as you can and get a taste of what your experience is like without them. That may be as simple as closing out an application when you're done with it, or may be as complex as changing the settings so an application doesn't notify you when new messages arrive. You'll need to play with this and see what works best for your needs and concentration. A good rule of thumb is "what does this thing track that is important enough for me to drop my important work and focus on this thing?." If you can scale your notifications so that only the most time-critical notifications reach you at the appropriate time then you'll be better able to relax and focus into your work. You won't have to parse the notifications to determine if what you're seeing is important or not.
-One of the reasons I've heard for folks keeping their notifications on is that they might receive something that requires an immediate response. We've created cultures where we feel a need to respond to messages the moment we receive them. I'd argue that most of the messages you receive during the day don't require the attention you're giving them, and certainly not the level of attention that warrants interrupting what you're doing to view and respond to them. You may be better served by scheduling several periods of the day where you do nothing but check and respond to your messages. Schedule these as infrequently as you can. Some folks recommend two or three times a day, but even setting a limit where you check your messages once an hour can make a vast improvement compared with how many times you're already checking your messages. You'll need to judge how often you check your messages based on your needs and your work culture. Also consider the person to whom you're responding. Does it make sense to give this person a quick, semi-thought-out response or does this message require more time to simmer in your mind before you respond? Giving yourself time to think about a your response may give you additional insights into a problem that might not be readily apparent in the moment. This could mean the difference between one well thought out response versus a deluge of half-thought-out back-and-forth brainstorming via your messaging application. Responding to everything as it's received is very stressful and requires huge amounts of attention that could be better used in your programming work.
+One of the reasons I've heard for folks keeping their notifications on is that they feel they might receive something that requires an immediate response. We've created cultures where we feel a need to respond to messages the moment we receive them. I'd argue that most of the messages you receive during the day don't require the attention you're giving them, and certainly not the level of attention that warrants interrupting what you're doing to view and respond to them. You may be better served by scheduling several periods of the day where you do nothing but check and respond to your messages. Schedule these as infrequently as you can. Some folks recommend two or three times a day, but even setting a limit where you check your messages once an hour can make a vast improvement over how many times you're already checking your messages. You'll need to judge how often you check your messages based on your needs and your work culture. Also consider the person to whom you're responding. Does it make sense to give this person a quick, semi-thought-out response, or does this message require more time to simmer in your mind before you respond? Giving yourself time to think about a your response may give you additional insights into a problem that might not be readily apparent in the moment. This could mean the difference between one well thought out response versus a deluge of half-thought-out back-and-forth brainstorming via your messaging application. Responding to everything as it's received is very stressful and requires huge amounts of attention that could be better used in your programming work.
It may seem challenging and foreign to live without notifications and without the need to respond to every message and notification, but our attention is finite and limited. Maintaining focus throughout the day is challenging and stressful. If we can limit the number of distractions we receive throughout the day we then give ourselves the freedom to not have to work as hard to keep our attention attuned to our programming tasks. We get to say "not right now" to our distractions and handle them at a more appropriate time.
When I graduated from college we learned Pascal, Modula2 and Ada. Unfortunately those languages were starting to decline in popularity in favor of C. When I started my first "professional" programming position Perl was the language of choice (partially because Perl could be easily transformed into the ubiquitous CGI scripts of the era, and was considered superior to scripting tools like `awk` and traditional shell scripts). As of this writing I'm using Python as my main development language, and I foresee that I'll have to look into other languages to expand my programming career.
-Programming requires flexibility. It's difficult to learn only one way of doing things and have that remain relevant for over 20 years. Think back to what was current technology 20 years ago and you'll no doubt notice that things are quite different now. (If you would like a fun exercise search for articles describing the state-of-the-art technology from 20 years ago and notice how much of it you recognize.)
+Programming requires flexibility. It's difficult to learn only one way of doing things and have that remain relevant for over 20 years. Think back to what was current technology 20 years ago and you'll no doubt notice that things are quite different now. If you would like a fun exercise, search for articles describing the state-of-the-art technology from 20 years ago and notice how much of it you recognize.
## Learning to learn
-Learning specific methodologies and technologies is not a good long-term strategy for programmers. We're better served by learning how to learn, and more importantly how we ourselves learn. That sounds simple: once we've cracked how to learn effectively then we'll be effective programmers. Unfortunately there isn't a foolproof way to learn that works for all people. Different folks learn in different ways. All of us have learning styles that work better when certain things are emphasized. Some learn better in a classroom while others learn best with self-directed study (books, video recordings, etc.). Some can read a book and be perfectly fine with understanding the material while others may need more visual approaches. If you have the luxury of trying several different methodologies for learning I'd encourage you to use as many as you can to figure out what works best for you. Understanding what works for you will be key to helping you progress and grow.
+Learning specific methodologies and technologies is not a good long-term strategy for programmers. We're better served by learning how to learn, and more importantly, how we ourselves learn. That sounds simple: once we've cracked how to learn effectively then we'll be effective programmers. Unfortunately there isn't a foolproof way to learn that works for all people. Different folks learn in different ways. All of us have learning styles that work better when certain things are emphasized. Some learn better in a classroom while others learn best with self-directed study (books, video recordings, etc.). Some can read a book and be perfectly fine with understanding the material, while others may need more visual approaches. If you have the luxury of trying several different methodologies for learning I'd encourage you to use as many as you can to figure out what works best for you. Understanding what works for you will be key to helping you progress and grow.
-I've found that some simple principles work best for me. The first is repetition. I learn better when I do something daily, over and over again, in small chunks. The second is having a small goal that I can achieve. So for me having a daily practice time on a project where I can work toward an end goal works best for me. When I was learning Python I enrolled in PyWeek, a one week game programming sprint where the theme is announced near the beginning and all programming happens during the week. For that entire week I made time to complete my game, and by the end of the week I'd learned more about Pygame (the library that I'd used) and Python than I had in the weeks leading up to PyWeek. Doing a one-week "game jam" (as they're currently called) is a bit extreme but it gave me a clear goal (a working, finished game) and a time-frame to accomplish it (one week). Over the years I've learned more about Python with various projects (both professionally and for myself) that had daily practice and clear end goals.
+I've found that some simple principles work best for me. The first is repetition. I learn better when I do something daily, over and over again, in small chunks. The second is having a small goal that I can achieve. So for me having a daily practice time on a project where I can work toward an end goal works best. When I was learning Python I enrolled in PyWeek, a one week game programming sprint where the theme is announced near the beginning and all programming happens during the week. For that entire week I made time to complete my game, and by the end of the week I'd learned more about Pygame (the library I used for my game) and Python than I had in the weeks leading up to PyWeek. Doing a one-week "game jam" (as they're currently called) is a bit extreme, but it gave me a clear goal (a completed, working game) and a time-frame to accomplish it (one week). Over the years I've learned more about Python with various projects (both professionally and for myself) that had daily practice and clear end goals.
You'll need to experiment to see what works best for you. The underlying principle is that your learning process should be something that you can use for any language or concept in programming. It should also offer the least amount of resistance to your learning. Your ability to learn and adapt will be vital to your experience as a programmer, so understanding your learning process and what works best for you will help you in this process.
-At the very least set aside 10 minutes per day as a container (see previous chapter) for focused reading and learning. There is a lot to learn in programming and creating a habit of learning will help you keep up. Remember, though, to keep your learning contained in small chunks. A lot of information can overwhelm you into thinking that you can't possibly learn it all. You're right -- you can't learn it all in one sitting. If someone told you to drink one of the Great Lakes in one sitting you'd be hard pressed to complete the task (note: please don't attempt this!). If, however, you filled a glass of water several times a day from one of the Great Lakes and drank it (10 minutes at a time) you'd start to make an appreciable dent in the reduction of that lake over your life-time. (Sure, it might not look like much on the outside, but that's the junction where reality and metaphors break down).
+At the very least, set aside 10 minutes per day as a container (see previous chapter) for focused reading and learning. There is a lot to learn in programming and creating a habit of learning will help you keep up. Remember, though, to keep your learning contained in small chunks. A lot of information can overwhelm you into thinking that you can't possibly learn it all. You're right -- you can't learn it all in one sitting. If someone told you to drink one of the Great Lakes in one sitting you'd be hard pressed to complete the task (note: please don't attempt this!). If, however, you filled a glass of water several times a day from one of the Great Lakes and drank it (10 minutes at a time) you'd start to make an appreciable dent in the reduction of that lake over your life-time. (Sure, it might not look like much on the outside, but that's the junction where reality and metaphors break down).
Each day you have an opportunity to learn more about the realm of computers and computer programming. Taking a small part of every day to learn a little bit more will help you on your journey.
## How to choose what to learn
-There are many opportunities to learn, whether it be via books, tutorials, videos, or computer-based training. There's also a myriad of different topics to learn. How do you decide which one is most important to learn? How do you manage what you're learning? How do you keep from getting overwhelmed with the options available?
+There are many opportunities to learn, whether it be via books, tutorials, videos, or computer-based training. There are also a myriad of different topics to learn. How do you decide which one is most important to learn? How do you manage what you're learning? How do you keep from getting overwhelmed with the options available?
-This gets us back to focusing on one thing at a time and understanding how you learn best. This feedback will help you decide what to learn next. One approach is to think about the things that you're most passionate about right now; what excites you at this moment. If there's something that you're eager to learn then start there. If you have multiple things that are exciting or interesting to you then write them down on a list and notice if you are more drawn to one of the topics than the others. If you're still having trouble deciding from this list then pick one at random (roll some dice or create a random-number generator to select one --- that could be a project).
+This brings us back to focusing on one thing at a time and understanding how you learn best. This feedback will help you decide what to learn next. One approach is to think about the things that you're most passionate about right now; what excites you at this moment? If there's something that you're eager to learn then start there. If you have multiple things that are exciting or interesting to you then write them down on a list and notice if you are more drawn to one of the topics than the others. If you're still having trouble deciding from this list then pick one at random (roll some dice or create a random-number generator to select one --- that could be a project).
If you have trouble thinking of something to learn and are struggling to come up with one item that is exciting to you then give yourself permission to browse and find what is out there. Observe the conversations of other programmers and find out what they are discussing. Head to a programmer meeting to follow the discussions of what they're talking about. Or, if you're really stuck, browse some job listings to find out what employers are searching for and notice if that sparks some interest.
-This isn't about picking the most important thing or the most useful thing (though your current situation may add some urgency to certain topics over others) it is about figuring out what has your attention and where to place your focus. Don't be concerned with making the perfect choice that will get you your next job or bolster your career. This exercise is about making a choice to learn something interesting and sticking with it long enough to learn more about it.
+This isn't about picking the most useful thing or the most important thing, though your current situation may add some urgency to certain topics over others, it is about figuring out what has your attention and where to place your focus. Don't be concerned with making the perfect choice that will get you your next job or bolster your career. This exercise is about making a choice to learn something interesting and sticking with it long enough to learn more about it.
-Once you have chosen the topic you want to learn then it's time to focus on learning it. If you have a preferred methodology (books, videos, tutorials, classes, etc.) then spend some time (no more than an hour or so) researching what resources are available. Some topics have beginner-friendly resources available that list off things that the community believes are helpful for programmers just getting started. Others may require asking questions of the community about where to start. Often something as simple as a tutorial can be a good way to get started with this exercise.
+Once you have chosen what you want to learn then it's time to focus on learning it. If you have a preferred methodology (books, videos, tutorials, classes, etc.) then spend some time (no more than an hour or so) researching what resources are available. Some topics have beginner-friendly resources available that list things that the community believes are helpful for programmers just getting started, while others may require asking the community where to start. Often something as simple as a tutorial can be a good way to get started with this exercise.
If you can find some resources in a short amount of time that's great! Start your learning process with those resources. Don't worry if they're the right resources or worry that they might lead you down the wrong path, just get started with them; you'll come back and evaluate them later. For now we're more interested in just getting started.
+### FIXME
+
One trap that I'm guilty of falling into is trying to find the best resources for learning a topic. I'll spend hours looking for the right book, the right videos, the right courses; whatever it is I want to find the best materials available. I want to reduce the amount of false-starts while learning a topic. This seems like a noble pursuit (after all, why wouldn't you want the best materials available?). It's also a trap and can lead you into spending more time thinking about how you're learning rather than actually learning. Worse, if the material starts to confuse you (which is highly likely when you are learning something new) you'll spend your learning-time wondering if you made the right decision picking this material. You'll wonder if you chose the right material and continue searching for the best material (perhaps those good and great reviews really didn't know what they were talking about after all?) This diminishes your ability to learn the topic because you're more focused on discerning the quality of instruction and not spending time on the actual instruction.
After a few days of practice sessions give yourself the opportunity to check in and see how you're learning. Are you feeling engaged or are you not enjoying this? If you're not feeling engaged (the material is loosely organized, the instructor is confusing, the examples don't work, this material assumes you're already familiar with another topic, etc.) then give yourself permission to see if there is better material or a different topic that interests you more. Even if your learning-experience wasn't great you'll have a better idea of what to look for when choosing something new. You'll have a sense of where your gaps are in the topic and will have a better feel for what you're looking for in learning materials.
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / commitdiff