[HN Gopher] The productivity tax you pay for context switching
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The productivity tax you pay for context switching
Author : andsoitis
Score : 24 points
Date : 2022-08-08 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (async.twist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (async.twist.com)
| lysergia wrote:
| I'm not so sure about this article. I've crafted my daily
| computing into various buckets not only to stay organized, but to
| compartment different activities from each other. For example I
| have a browser profile for NSFW activity that I don't want
| anywhere near my professional work related activity. Likewise I
| have a whole browser profile dedicated to casual surfing of the
| web with browsing history turned off and all the browsing
| artifacts get erased upon closing the browser. This isolates
| sessions so that cookies etc can't build massive profiles of me.
| Likewise I have a browser profile where I need to be logged into
| various services (Amazon, Netflix, Spotify etc) which keeps
| cookies, and no other browsing is done apart from using those
| specific sites.
|
| If I need to be productive, again, I context switch into a
| dedicated workstation that has all my devtools ready, alongside
| specially configured browsers that I use to test the sites I'm
| building. These browsers again are separated and highly context
| specific.
|
| Welcome to modern computing! Context switching is on the menu :)
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Now try context-switching from those to a hour long meandering
| meeting with no agenda, that you MUST attend in person and
| pounding away at code on your laptop during the meeting is
| frowned upon.
| hinkley wrote:
| I have vowed that this year I'm going to use a private profile
| for Christmas shopping, but the problem is that once I actually
| buy the present, that's going to be tied into their database
| whether I use a private session or not.
|
| And since they love to show you ads for things you just
| purchased, which makes no sense to me at all, then I have to
| hide my browser windows from that person until December 25th or
| they'll be able to tell what I got them by looking at the right
| margin of any page I'm visiting.
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| One aspect of context switching I struggle with is that often a
| task requires short periods of forced inactivity, like waiting
| for a script or query to finish. Often times it's in the scale of
| 1-2 minutes. It feels long enough that I don't want to sit there
| staring at a progress bar, but switching to another task
| momentarily definitely can cause a loss of focus.
|
| The solution is probably something along the lines of: become
| more comfortable sitting and reflecting on the current task. Find
| ways to remain engaged with the current task during the waiting
| period (reviewing the code, adding more comments, fleshing out
| next steps, etc.). Don't give in to a perception of "justified"
| context switching.
| analog31 wrote:
| I did a bunch of optics R&D, so those 1-2 minutes were spent
| waiting in a lab with the lights turned off and a warning light
| flashing over the door.
|
| You know where I'm going next. Actually, I found that a quick
| snooze didn't affect my flow at all.
| echelon wrote:
| I want a very quick intro to context switching that I can show to
| laypeople that don't do knowledge work.
|
| So many people I interact with don't understand the toll of
| interruptions.
| cweagans wrote:
| https://devhumor.com/media/never-interrupt-a-programmer maybe?
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