4 ms·

I've been doing this on my latest personal project. What I've realised I missed the most is feeling in the zone or in a "flow" state as some call it. It really

by dom96 1mo ago

I've been doing this on my latest personal project. What I've realised I missed the most is feeling in the zone or in a "flow" state as some call it. It really feels amazing. Coding agents take that away from you. I really think we need some coding agent implementation which takes less agency away from programmers and helps people be in the flow even more. For my project I use Gemini/Google's AI mode to great effect. Quick answers to be reminded about syntax, and to get help when stuck. It actually enhances the flow state. Plus it's all free.

KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
What do you use to be in the zone? music in the background? What type? Or silence or something else?
- nunez 1mo ago
  Good music, a good beverage and loads upon loads upon loads of free time.
- noduerme 1mo ago
  I don't think it has to do with sound. Some sounds can disrupt it, of course. I can work well in a noisy cafe as long as I'm not listening to any particular conversation. Although oftentimes, if I'm alone, I talk to myself out loud while I'm coding ("no, not that, it should go here... where's that header? stupid typo...") We used to call it "seeing through the code". The moment when you're no longer looking at text on a page, you're seeing what it does as you scroll through it. What you need most, to get to that place, is to simply spend a lot of time writing and reading code until it becomes second nature. Something like 10,000 hours. Once you've done that, reading an LLM's code is trivial. But letting it write most of the code, without reviewing it line by line, causes rapid brain atrophy. Because to really be in the zone, you need to keep everything relevant in your head. Which means it has to be in there in the first place.
  - KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
    That makes sense. I wonder how much the sound itself matters versus it simply becoming part of the ritual that tells your brain "now we’re working" I used to listen to classical music, rap or hip hop, but lately I’ve moved toward those long focus playlists on YouTube and things like Brain.fm. They seem to help me, so I was curious whether other people deliberately use something to get into that state or whether it just happens through the work itself.
- hrideshmg 1mo ago
  the flow state isn't something that is triggered by music. It can help maybe, but it's not a pre-requisite. It's something common to a lot of creative fields, that moment where u enter a sort of hyper-focused state where the line between you and the code blurs and you operate at peak efficiency. It quite literally feels like overclocking your brain. I miss it a lot.
  - KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
    I tend to agree. I think music can help prolong the state. It helps to keep on grinding. You said you miss that state a lot. What changed? Is it related to using AI more when coding or something else?
- nogbit 1mo ago
  You don’t need to use anything. You just need to enjoy what you are doing. This is often related to dopamine. Being in flow state for hours on end while programming is bliss and fun for me. If you don’t enjoy programming keep trying, have the language or api docs open and do not use generative AI. Generative AI just gets you outcomes. An artist paints because they like painting, not because they like a pile of painted pictures.
  - KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
    I’m not a programmer, life choices took me in another direction, but I’m starting to understand the addictive part of building things and immediately seeing them come to life. With AI coding it suddenly feels like there are so many possibilities. My biggest problem now is almost the opposite: trying not to chase every idea and keeping myself focused on building one thing. There’s definitely a dopamine hit in seeing visible progress regularly :)
- dom96 1mo ago
  For me music is usually a must. I need to drown out any potential distracting noise.
ceejayoz 1mo ago
Eh, experiences will vary. For me, my zone is conducting things, not typing. Firing something off in twelve tabs and coming back later is precisely how my brain works.
- majormajor 1mo ago
  > Firing something off in twelve tabs and coming back later As someone who gets "in the zone" like the person you're replying to, I just don't get how this could possibly be the same thing. "Coming back later" doesn't make any sense when you're in that state. Stopping and waiting is a killer. You're just constantly doing things without necessarily consciously thinking about it. Do you mean you're switching continually between the twelve sessions? Or literally "coming back" in a different sort of operating mode? The closest thing to it for me using AI tools is specifically not running multiple "agents" but making targeted changes over and over and over but with a 10x+ increase in typing-vs-change ratio. (This also rules out things like Opus let alone Fable as they're just too slow and do too much at once.)
  - ceejayoz 1mo ago
    My zone is like that of an orchestra conductor. I point at the violins. I gesture the drums upwards. Sometimes I make a big broad gesture that encompasses the entire orchestra. My agents are tasked, in part, with explaining the context with mockups and examples I can poke at for each job.
    - majormajor 1mo ago
      You mentioned "coming back later" but being in the zone. That's the part I want to understand. So this metaphor isn't helping cause the conductor is constantly working, constantly seeing the output. Not coming back later.
      - ceejayoz 1mo ago
        My zone is the big-picture zone. What are we building, what needs to be done, how do the interrelated bits all come together? I can tell an agent "go implement X" and start planning Y that comes after it. I don't really get in the zone for raw code typing, that's always been a slog.
yttt 1mo ago
[dead]
wiether 1mo ago
I experience the exact opposite myself. Before AI, the only way I could get in the flow was by isolating myself from everything to avoid direct distractions (phone, emails, IM...) or indirect (having something else on my mind). It was something I was able to achieve only a few times a year. It did felt incredible. As soon I was getting stuck on something tedious, I had to resort to a web search and it broke the flow. With AI, I can achieve this state every weekend for personal projects, and every day I'm WFH or when I'm alone in my corner of the office. I start with a list of goals/tasks, put X agents at work (I prefer working on multiple projects in parallel, with only one task per project) and while they're doing their stuff, I'm thinking about the next steps, filling the backlog, catching issues needing rework... I don't get stuck: either the agent we'll offer a workaround, or I'll push it in the backlog. Most often, the solution comes to me while I'm not in front of my computer. I can focus on the big picture, the actual problems that I'm trying to solve. Yesterday I did exactly this: started at 8am, leaving my desk just to fill my water bottle or empty my bladder... and it's only because a friend came to my place at 8pm that I stopped. I thought I was at it for only two hours... I hate how this comment can make me look as an AI preacher; but I'm not trying to convince anyone to stop doing anything they're doing because I found the ultimate solution. No. I'm just describing how I'm enjoying _doing stuff_ on the computer more than I ever did in the ~30 years I've been doing it.

by dom96 1mo ago

KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago

What do you use to be in the zone? music in the background? What type? Or silence or something else?

nunez 1mo ago
Good music, a good beverage and loads upon loads upon loads of free time.
noduerme 1mo ago
I don't think it has to do with sound. Some sounds can disrupt it, of course. I can work well in a noisy cafe as long as I'm not listening to any particular conversation. Although oftentimes, if I'm alone, I talk to myself out loud while I'm coding ("no, not that, it should go here... where's that header? stupid typo...") We used to call it "seeing through the code". The moment when you're no longer looking at text on a page, you're seeing what it does as you scroll through it. What you need most, to get to that place, is to simply spend a lot of time writing and reading code until it becomes second nature. Something like 10,000 hours. Once you've done that, reading an LLM's code is trivial. But letting it write most of the code, without reviewing it line by line, causes rapid brain atrophy. Because to really be in the zone, you need to keep everything relevant in your head. Which means it has to be in there in the first place.
- KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
  That makes sense. I wonder how much the sound itself matters versus it simply becoming part of the ritual that tells your brain "now we’re working" I used to listen to classical music, rap or hip hop, but lately I’ve moved toward those long focus playlists on YouTube and things like Brain.fm. They seem to help me, so I was curious whether other people deliberately use something to get into that state or whether it just happens through the work itself.
hrideshmg 1mo ago
the flow state isn't something that is triggered by music. It can help maybe, but it's not a pre-requisite. It's something common to a lot of creative fields, that moment where u enter a sort of hyper-focused state where the line between you and the code blurs and you operate at peak efficiency. It quite literally feels like overclocking your brain. I miss it a lot.
- KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
  I tend to agree. I think music can help prolong the state. It helps to keep on grinding. You said you miss that state a lot. What changed? Is it related to using AI more when coding or something else?
nogbit 1mo ago
You don’t need to use anything. You just need to enjoy what you are doing. This is often related to dopamine. Being in flow state for hours on end while programming is bliss and fun for me. If you don’t enjoy programming keep trying, have the language or api docs open and do not use generative AI. Generative AI just gets you outcomes. An artist paints because they like painting, not because they like a pile of painted pictures.
- KingOfMyRoom 1mo ago
  I’m not a programmer, life choices took me in another direction, but I’m starting to understand the addictive part of building things and immediately seeing them come to life. With AI coding it suddenly feels like there are so many possibilities. My biggest problem now is almost the opposite: trying not to chase every idea and keeping myself focused on building one thing. There’s definitely a dopamine hit in seeing visible progress regularly :)
dom96 1mo ago
For me music is usually a must. I need to drown out any potential distracting noise.

ceejayoz 1mo ago

Eh, experiences will vary. For me, my zone is conducting things, not typing. Firing something off in twelve tabs and coming back later is precisely how my brain works.

majormajor 1mo ago
> Firing something off in twelve tabs and coming back later As someone who gets "in the zone" like the person you're replying to, I just don't get how this could possibly be the same thing. "Coming back later" doesn't make any sense when you're in that state. Stopping and waiting is a killer. You're just constantly doing things without necessarily consciously thinking about it. Do you mean you're switching continually between the twelve sessions? Or literally "coming back" in a different sort of operating mode? The closest thing to it for me using AI tools is specifically not running multiple "agents" but making targeted changes over and over and over but with a 10x+ increase in typing-vs-change ratio. (This also rules out things like Opus let alone Fable as they're just too slow and do too much at once.)
- ceejayoz 1mo ago
  My zone is like that of an orchestra conductor. I point at the violins. I gesture the drums upwards. Sometimes I make a big broad gesture that encompasses the entire orchestra. My agents are tasked, in part, with explaining the context with mockups and examples I can poke at for each job.
  - majormajor 1mo ago
    You mentioned "coming back later" but being in the zone. That's the part I want to understand. So this metaphor isn't helping cause the conductor is constantly working, constantly seeing the output. Not coming back later.
    - ceejayoz 1mo ago
      My zone is the big-picture zone. What are we building, what needs to be done, how do the interrelated bits all come together? I can tell an agent "go implement X" and start planning Y that comes after it. I don't really get in the zone for raw code typing, that's always been a slog.

yttt 1mo ago

[dead]

wiether 1mo ago

I experience the exact opposite myself. Before AI, the only way I could get in the flow was by isolating myself from everything to avoid direct distractions (phone, emails, IM...) or indirect (having something else on my mind). It was something I was able to achieve only a few times a year. It did felt incredible. As soon I was getting stuck on something tedious, I had to resort to a web search and it broke the flow. With AI, I can achieve this state every weekend for personal projects, and every day I'm WFH or when I'm alone in my corner of the office. I start with a list of goals/tasks, put X agents at work (I prefer working on multiple projects in parallel, with only one task per project) and while they're doing their stuff, I'm thinking about the next steps, filling the backlog, catching issues needing rework... I don't get stuck: either the agent we'll offer a workaround, or I'll push it in the backlog. Most often, the solution comes to me while I'm not in front of my computer. I can focus on the big picture, the actual problems that I'm trying to solve. Yesterday I did exactly this: started at 8am, leaving my desk just to fill my water bottle or empty my bladder... and it's only because a friend came to my place at 8pm that I stopped. I thought I was at it for only two hours... I hate how this comment can make me look as an AI preacher; but I'm not trying to convince anyone to stop doing anything they're doing because I found the ultimate solution. No. I'm just describing how I'm enjoying _doing stuff_ on the computer more than I ever did in the ~30 years I've been doing it.