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SamTheButcher (574069)

SamTheButcher
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"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress." - Joseph Joubert

"If you want really want to hurt your parents and don't want to be gay, go into the arts" - Kurt Vonnegut

I'm the mysterious American guest in cottage #8. And I'd like more towels, please. -artifex2004

Journal of SamTheButcher (574069)

[programming] So it comes to this....

[ #140449 ]
Tuesday July 25 2006, @11:09AM
Programming

Ok, now the question I think I've seen on an Ask Slashdot before, but I'm looking for more in-depth from y'all.

As I sat last night, supposed to be doing my homework, I found distractions in just about everything. I figure I wasted probably at least a half hour, if not an hour, of the two hours I had blocked aside to do my homework. I ended up extending my blocked time to three hours, but still didn't get much done.

The question comes in a few parts: One, how lousy did your concentration used to be when programming? Two, how did you overcome procrastination, how have you changed yourself to be more disciplined? Three, how do you work now - what sort of environment, do you tell the family to stay away, do you have a quiet corner, what? (This question assumes family, but for those without, please describe anyway. It also assumes you had/have a procrastination problem - you can see, looking over my journals, that this is ongoing for me.)

It's not like my family was in my way, they were downstairs playing games (Haunted Mansion Clue and Magic Kingdom game) and I was upstairs (okay, I was on my bed, but it's the one place I could spread all my reading material out as my desk in the basement is, yes, cluttered to all hell).

It didn't help that I spent probably a half hour before I figured out that my function statement was outside my module, which was throwing errors. Bleah. So...gotta leave work and go try to finish my homework the night that it's due. Again.

Sure, my schedule doesn't allow for much procrastination, but I need to be more disciplined about using the time that I have wisely.

From some previous programming journals: They gave us VB.NET studio or something, so I didn't have to pay *or* download. :) And that's just for the simple programming we're going to be doing these last weeks. I'm looking at what class I'm going to be taking this fall - maybe Java, maybe I need some more intro to programming. Not sure yet.

Thanks for all of your previous and ongoing help. It's really encouraging.


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[programming] So it comes to this.... 25 Comments More | Login /

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  • 1.) I do my development in a work environment, not at home. Home is full of distractions (family or not).
    2.) Getting caught up in a major issue can be daunting, but I have help (my coworkers) to get me through it and keep me on task.
    3.) I'm experienced enough that I can keep in mind the big picture instead of worrying about the details.

    So, yes, you are going to be distracted a lot in your current situation. When you work in a business environment, have coworkers, and get used to the job, those distrac
    • Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the 'dot and gmail and my mail and...and...and....

      But point well taken about the environment. But, how did you do it while you were in school? :)
      • Back in school I played mtrek, nethack, hunt, mud, xtrek, and netrek. Oh wait I never ended up getting my degree, so maybe there is a lesson to be learned here. But I was really damn good at netrek.

        Listening to music helps me when I program; having an environment where you will be distracted as little as possible is helpful. At least for me I program better when I am not exhausted, which is hard because typically the only time I have for brain intensive tasks is at night when I am wiped from a long day. And

        • which is hard because typically the only time I have for brain intensive tasks is at night when I am wiped from a long day.

          That was the other hard thing last night - being in the comfortable bed, reading about strings in VB...put me out for a bit. I don't think I really fell asleep, just dozed, but still.

          I should get up an hour earlier in the morning and work on my code & homework. At least I'll be awake. :)
          • For me, time of day is fairly important. I program better the closer i get to bed-time. Another thing (and others will back me up) is caffeine. Dunno why, but it works.

            The thing that caught me the most was that you were on your bed... I HIGHLY suggest finding a desk. I code with my feet propped up (even when I had my office at ly old job). I put an old tower under my desk to rest them, but I find I can't concentrate well if I'm laying down.

            Plan your thoughts out on paper or a whiteboard first. Make a
      • I played a lot of games, and hung out with my friends. My coding knowledge mostly exists due to co-op and after degree work.

        Yeah, I got my degree... but by the skin of my teeth...

      • In school, I had the advantage of working in the computer center. Most of the time, it was behind the front desk. It was a separate room, with a large open window toward the main floor, and I had the proverbial Orange Wall behind me to intimidate the clueless. And I worked enough hours that it was perfect for getting homework done. Just me, a VT220, and a Pascal compiler.

        The dorm, OTOH, was Distraction Central, between my game-laden PC, my roommate's Genesis, and the usual mayhem in the halls.

  • Two, how did you overcome procrastination, how have you changed yourself to be more disciplined?

    I make it kind of a game. I look at the given task as an opponent. I envision myself smashing the given task to pieces as if with a mace or a war hammer, just absolutely devistating it. I ask myself, "What must be overcome?" In some cases, it's finding a bug, or figuring out how to do something in my code.

    If I don't want to do what I know needs to be done (I am, after all, only human) I will then do nothing.
    • I will then do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just sit there, knowing what needs to be done, but giving myself permission to do nothing. "Nothing" as in "no web surfing" as well. You would be surprised how difficult it is to do absolutely nothing for very long.

      I like that. Kind of creating almost a punishment for yourself. "If you're not going to program, you do nothing"

      I typically will program on my Mac that doesn't connect well with 802.11b, so I won't be tempted to surf. I took the wireless card out of my
  • if i could help you with the procrastination thing, i wouldn't be here to do so.

  • I know how it feels. I'm one of those guys that prefer a dimly lit room, with a bit music in the background and then I can focus on my problem and do it right. Turn off email client, the dot and even the phone (if you can, that is) Things is, I rarely get these conditions. I get them fairly well when I head over at my parents and work there, because they know that once I'm focussed on something on my computer, better don't disturb me. Wifey alas doesn't know this yet, so programming at home is pretty

  • It is very hard to do with a family. Even if they are downstairs, its hard. Part of that, at least with me, is that I spend all of my time either with co-workers or family, so when I do manage to have quiet time, the last thing my brain wants to think about it work! And, now matter how fun it may be, once it is something that needs to be done for class or a deadline, it shifts from the play category to the work category.

    I have been struggling with this greatly of late. I am realizing how I have been s

    • I have been struggling with this greatly of late. I am realizing how I have been self-sabotaging my creative efforts. Every time I get close enough to be within reaching distance of accomplishing something, I will find reasons why other things need to take priority. I have come to realize that I am not only afraid of failure (ie if I never complete it then it can never "fail") but I am afraid of success. What happens if I sell a story and make money? Or if I manage to get good enough at coding to where I ca
  • First of all, get off your bed and find an area where you can switch to "work" mode. I was having a lot of sleep issues in high school and one suggestion was to stop doing anything but sleeping in bed. That helped my mind associate the bed area with sleeping rather than homework, reading, or jello.

    Same goes for work and studies, get your mind to associate a desk or table with work or studying.

    Have you found your "zone" yet? Where you have the solution firmly in your head and your fingers are flying to get

    • Actually, when I'm stuck, bed is the first place I go to, with a ring binder full of looseleaf, a pen, and a few manuals. You'd be amazed at how much thinking you can do when yu're away from the keyboard. No distractions.

      Of course, when you then hit the keyboard again, you have already got a better idea of what you're aiming for, even if all you wrote inyor notebook was a few sketches, a few key words and phrases, etc.

      Case in point: I hate the over-dependence of CMS systems on database backends for gen

      • True, for the get-away part I ususally take a walk at a park or the zoo. Somewhere that's not within sight of a computer.

        Doing that helps a lot with getting a fresh look at the problem since you don't focus on the details right in front of you.
  • Get baked.

    :-D

    ....Bethanie....
  • ...of giving you something else to spend your precious time on, there's an excellent WikiBook on Overcoming Procrastination [wikibooks.org].

    There are countless causes for procrastinating. Some of my personal favorites are: fear of failure, perfectionism, and the feeling of being overwhelmed.

    Being overwhelmed is probably number one on my personal hit parade, but it can be thwarted pretty easily by adopting a single habit.

    I have to produce a lot of documentation as part of my job. I'm currently working on a document

  • I try not to code at home, but instead work on problems in my head and then bang it all out when I get to work.

    Sometimes I work at home when I'm on a deadline though.

    Work is horribly distracting because we have an "open office" layout, so it's easy for someone to interrupt my work.
  • Since I'm the freshest out of school I think I'm your best canidate. I'll also try to keep this short-winded.

    First, work where you know you work best. I've read the other comments and being at a place of work is good. You don't have that though, you have school and home. I hated working in the labs at school because they were far too distracting for me. All the people and noise drove my brain crazy. Being the way I am my mind and ears will pick up on faint conversations or some stupid buzzing noise and I
  • Since I also do/did PC support and we've got Unix boxes to care and feed there are quite a number of interruptions during the course of a day that keep you from concentrating 100% on the programming work.

    Just realize that that is going to happen and learn to back-burner some of your design work. I will usually let a new function or issue percolate in my brain for a day or two (or three depending on interruptions and work load) before really trying to lay down code for it. This usually lets me eliminate on
  • "I'm going to get this done in the next ten minutes." Small, bite sized pieces. As you start accomplishing things, that gets the ball rolling.

    Sure, I done headphones and use music to help me focus (there are these two MF Doom songs that I can listen to over and over and over again...), but the biggest thing is to NOT stare at a mountain of work, but instead to parcel it out into small, discreet tasks.
  • The first thing I have to do is remove the distractions. Turn the phone completely off - make sure I can't even hear the machine / voice of the caller. Disconnect my internet connection. Have only the materials I will need immediately to hand. Use bathroom, have water handy, eat small snack. And so on. If something distracts you, recognize it as such and, if at all possible, find a way to remove it from the area.

    The second thing I have to do is really create the space where I'm going to work. Better

  • I always keep three projects "live", and one of them is primarily documentation (a programmer always has documentation to write, even if it's pre-factoring commentary). If possible, I try to have those projects deal with diverse portions of the system.

    Basically, if I get distracted from one, I give up for a while and jump to another. If I am on a major deadline, then I take a 15 minute break (outside of the office/home - even if it's to my car and back).

    Music - keep a playlist of music you like, if

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