
Ask HN: To what extent should I control my completion disorder? - scandox
A small disclaimer: I don&#x27;t actually believe I have any diagnoseable disorder. I just could not find a better shorthand for this behaviour.<p>I have a lot of difficulty moving from one task to another, without reaching some arbitrary milestone, which means I view it as stable (I never really view anything as complete). I&#x27;m good at focusing on one thing for a long time. Often, though, there is clearly a very good reason to move on to another task. Sometimes, I&#x27;m even aware that I will be able to quickly resolve something if I can just step away from it for a while and do something else...but I continue to beat my brains out over it, until sleep or some other external force (that&#x27;s Mrs External Force to you) intervenes.<p>This behaviour also has medium term consequences. For example I often bury myself in coding for several weeks, ignoring client communication and even billing. Often, I can&#x27;t even face typing up an invoice until a project reaches a designated milestone. But the milestone is completely of my own making and often includes a host of things that are not even visible to the end client. So why not take a coffee break, write and email the invoice? Looking on from the outside there&#x27;s something mildly insane about it.<p>One thing I&#x27;ve observed is that I feel anxiety that I&#x27;m going to lose control of what I&#x27;m doing - as if I might lose my mental picture of the thing I&#x27;m working on as a whole. I feel like if I stop and come back to it, I&#x27;ll be starting from scratch. Which is nonsense really.<p>This both is and is not about context-switching. I think that&#x27;s been thrashed out at great length on HN. I know focus brings great benefits: I finish things to a reasonable standard, I can learn new things, I can work quickly. Maybe this is just the trade off I&#x27;m made with. But I would like to hear whether other people have developed techniques to take command of when they focus and when they switch.
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brudgers
Typing up invoices and talking to clients is not as much fun as coding for
some people. For others it is more fun. Going to work and "getting away with"
questionable habits around client relations is just the flip side of going to
work and "getting away with" poor habits around coding rigor.

The lazy way to handle the habit is to get someone else to do it...i.e. a
partner or a service or an employee or a book keeper or your split personality
if you have one [you don't].

If the clients aren't upset, and they'll let you know by hiring someone else,
then it's just a quirk and not worth beating yourself up over.

Good luck.

~~~
scandox
Thanks. I think I worry more about not having more self control than I do
about my clients!

