

 Hyperbrain Owner's Manual - 3. Keep tasks closed - swombat
http://inter-sections.net/2008/09/05/hyperbrain-owners-manual-3-keep-tasks-closed

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BrandonM
Maybe I need some better perspective, but I can't imagine breaking down all of
my programming tasks into 15 minute increments. That is, to be able to commit
new, tested, working code to a codebase on such a short timeframe seems like
it's introducing a lot of overhead in context switching and that it would be
very difficult to break down a complex piece in such a manner.

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swombat
As I mention in the article, you don't need to break down the whole task into
15 minute increments - just the next chunk.

Think of it as a kind of extreme-agile approach. Don't plan the whole task
ahead of time (well, do plan roughly where you want to go), but before
working, do break off a small chunk of the task ahead that you can do in a
short time.

I've conducted all sorts of coding tasks in that way, from building new
functionality (easy - just make sure you don't break old stuff while building
new stuff, until the new stuff is ready and tested, and work in small
increments) to major, multi-day refactorings (always do one tiny bit of the
refactoring at a time, and commit as soon as it's done).

It doesn't need to be "tested and working" unless it's visible (or non-trivial
to hide). If it can be hidden easily and doesn't impact other existing
functionality, then it's easy to maintain in a closed state.

With SCM's like Git, you can do that committing into a separate branch so that
you even have a "meta" roll-back ability, in case you find out halfway through
that actually you were going in the wrong direction.

PS: Also, 15 minutes is just my ideal time length for each sprint. Adjust that
for yourself - the key concept is to close tasks regularly, not to worship an
egg timer :-)

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pavelludiq
I shall meditate all night on this problem and the ideas in this blog
post(probably just 15 minutes, before sleeping distracts me).

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hhm
Useful ideas, thank you for this article!

