Rituals & Habits

Given that my last post talked about habits, their refinement, and occasional replacement I ran across an article that talks about the rituals and habits of effective coders. Of particular interest was this:

“To me, programming is really the ‘last mile’ to getting something done. When I do the planning and specifications, I go on lots of walks, take lots of time with my wife, and really do as little work in front of the computer as possible.  The more I plan (in my head, on paper, on a whiteboard) the less I program; and all of my rituals are to that end” – Issac Kelly, Lead Developer at Servee.com

I use a version of this technique also but for most of my research related activities. Instead of sitting at my desk worrying away at a problem I also go for walks or sit outside, or at least hang-around somewhere other than at my desk. All the while the particular problem that I am working on moves round and round until I have enough detail worked out that I can make some progress. It is at this point that I sit at my desk and blitz through my ideas, whether coding or writing, making more progress than if I had just sat at my desk chipping away at the problems. Of course I have a number of things that necessitate that I stay at my desk, meetings, marking, and general administrivia, but otherwise I like to get away from it whenever possible. For this to work for me though requires a decent support system: good filing so that I know where everything is, a decent paper notebook so that I can make notes and not forget stuff, a whiteboard at each base, home and office, so that I can work through ideas when I have finished perambulating, and a diary so that I know where I should be at any given point.

NB. I have tried and failed to move to an electronic diary and note-taking regime. They just don’t work for me. They are slower than paper, less flexible, less robust, and are never there when you need them.