Mental modes (by alaric)
Hmmm, it appears I have two mental modes when working.
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Deeply focussed into something. I block out distractions to hold onto the focus. This is what I need when I'm programming. Once I get into this mood, I get a lot done, since I have all the pertinent information sitting in my head and all the correct windows open on my computer, but it can be an uphill struggle to get started.
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Event driven. When I'm dealing with emails, phonecalls, broken servers, and that sort of thing, I'm in a very different mode, agily flipping between things. I come across problems that will clearly need some deep focus, and I have to put them off for later, since it takes me a while to get out of deep mode and into event-driven mode.
This morning I've been event-driven, catching up on email, dealing with a down server, and now I really ought to try moving back into deep focus mode to work on something else, and I'm finding it hard; my thoughts just keep jumping around!
I really want to decrease my dependence on lots of deep thought mode for earning money; part of this revolves around getting an underling to do more of the programming so I can be event-drivenly mentoring them while doing the considerably easier form of deep thought required to design software architectures for them to implement... which is a work in progress as we speak...
Mon 25th Feb 2008 12:32 pm 
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By Lionel, Fri 7th Mar 2008 @ 6:07 pm
The event driven bit has been the plague of my life in recent years. It holds one in a passive state like a leaf blown in the wind - I want to do something solid but the phone rings, someone needs to borrow something, the software needs updating then the internet is slow, now it's time for lunch and i have not yet bought butter...
Suddenly there is peace and I should be immediately focussing on my original intended work. But, like you say, it takes time to revert to deep thought and I remain fluttering in the wind and agitated until the next rush of events drive me on again.