6 ms·

stands up Hi. I'm a programmer who's never been in the zone (as I understand it). This is in spite of being engaged in my work, and vigorous efforts to improve

by Afton 16y ago

stands up Hi. I'm a programmer who's never been in the zone (as I understand it). This is in spite of being engaged in my work, and vigorous efforts to improve my practice. I wonder how many of us there are.

lloeki 16y ago
Many. At work I'm one of the few that have to get in the zone to do any meaningful amount of work. They mostly seem not to require much effort to start working on anything. Also, multitasking does not seem to make such a hit on their productivity as it does for me. Maybe they have a sort of zone too, only much less pronounced and thus not noticeable to them. When I'm not in the zone it seems like I'm grinding compared to them, like I'm walking in a swamp. Yet when I'm in, I work at what seems like stratospheric speeds. Sometimes the zone happens when collaborating on solving a complex but rewarding problem, or an involved yet insightful discussion. When this happens, I feel 'offseted', like I'm on a different flow of time. My brain churns away, evaluating solutions, and I can almost hear the colleagues mind slowly ticking. I seem to have computed how every path of the conversation tree will unfold, which questions they will come up with and which conclusion they will reach. It's terrible because in that case I can subtly nudge their thought flow in one direction or another, making them reach a given conclusion faster. Everytime I feel like performing some dirty Jedi mind trick. Most of the time I refrain from doing so and adopt a maieutic approach to let them reach their solution by themselves, only cutting dead branches around. The zone is a wonderful, timeless moment when experienced alone, but every time third parties are involved it's a frightening experience. It's also a bane of sorts, because I'm utterly improductive without it.

6 ms·

stands up Hi. I'm a programmer who's never been in the zone (as I understand it). This is in spite of being engaged in my work, and vigorous efforts to improve

by Afton 16y ago

lloeki 16y ago
Many. At work I'm one of the few that have to get in the zone to do any meaningful amount of work. They mostly seem not to require much effort to start working on anything. Also, multitasking does not seem to make such a hit on their productivity as it does for me. Maybe they have a sort of zone too, only much less pronounced and thus not noticeable to them. When I'm not in the zone it seems like I'm grinding compared to them, like I'm walking in a swamp. Yet when I'm in, I work at what seems like stratospheric speeds. Sometimes the zone happens when collaborating on solving a complex but rewarding problem, or an involved yet insightful discussion. When this happens, I feel 'offseted', like I'm on a different flow of time. My brain churns away, evaluating solutions, and I can almost hear the colleagues mind slowly ticking. I seem to have computed how every path of the conversation tree will unfold, which questions they will come up with and which conclusion they will reach. It's terrible because in that case I can subtly nudge their thought flow in one direction or another, making them reach a given conclusion faster. Everytime I feel like performing some dirty Jedi mind trick. Most of the time I refrain from doing so and adopt a maieutic approach to let them reach their solution by themselves, only cutting dead branches around. The zone is a wonderful, timeless moment when experienced alone, but every time third parties are involved it's a frightening experience. It's also a bane of sorts, because I'm utterly improductive without it.