In my experience programming is almost fractically complex. No matter how far you subdivide the problem you're solving you're making a tradeoff between the comp

In my experience programming is almost fractically complex. No matter how far you subdivide the problem you're solving you're making a tradeoff between the complexity of the problem you're solving and the complexity of the tree of sub-problems. And even ignoring that: writing down abstract concepts is hard. Doing so is (to me) as distracting as dropping my work completely and doing something else for a while. IMO the solution isn't never being disturbed and it isn't writing everything down either. It's keeping disturbances as few as reasonable and being able to get back to it quickly, even if that means rebuilding your mental model.