Sorry, but this just sounds like a bunch of hogwash.
Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. You see a lot of references to studies, but take a moment to actually follow the links and see what the studies say. Then come back and look at his many conjectures.
The reason why "internal interruptions" occur is because you get tired and your mind wanders. That is your cue to TAKE A DAMN BREAK! We're not machines. Trying to optimize your "flow state" is a fool's errand. Just keep a healthy, distraction-free work environment and work with what your body allows.
And it's not the scheduled interruptions such as meetings and such that destroy flow; it's the unscheduled interruptions. So if you don't want to be prematurely pulled out of your flow, make sure you keep your schedule in your mind, and do whatever you can to ensure that nobody interrupts you on a whim.
And if someone does, it's not the end of the world. Rebuilding the state in your mind is a LOT easier the second time than the first! If it happens too often, bring it up with the boss.
Also: Flow is not necessary or even desirable at all times. Many times you just want to be out for a walk while your fabulous brain rekejiggers things in the background. Or just walk away from it so that you can come back and look at it from a different perspective! Or have a chat with concerned persons to make sure the design makes sense. Flow isn't the answer to everything (or even most things).
Flow is not something to optimize or life hack. My advice after 30 years in the industry is: Just do your job adequately. No one at your funeral is going to eulogize your work performance.
This seems overly harsh. Poor development environments, documentation that takes too long to find anything, annoying code practices, etc. are all ways to snap yourself out of of flow.
The point of the article is that you should examine what keeps you in flow and what knocks you out, and optimize for the former.
One can rarely “schedule” flow so when a scheduled meeting interrupts flow it’s still an interruption.
Additionally, anecdotally, I don’t work for anyone if/when I’m developing but I still very much appreciate the moments of flow when creating. Why bash it altogether? Seems a strange take.
> My advice after 30 years in the industry is: Just do your job adequately. No one at your funeral is going to eulogize your work performance.
Maybe nobody cares about your work, but there is one person that should care: you.
You are already devoting your time to work, so why not make sure that you get some satisfaction from it. A massive pay increase for something that your bosses can't take from you.
Watch any good tradie or professional, and discover what pride they get beyond the dollars paid to fix your tap or wipe your arse.
I look back on work I have done with pride. There is no-one with enough knowledge (only me) to judge the qaulity of my past work (especially because much of it was not part of a development team). Like most work done by most people, the work I have done in the past is now worthless e.g. superceded by other systems. I haven't built monuments. Only I can judge the work I have done.
I do work for others because I'm not rich enough to survive without a salary.
When I work, I of course do so with skill and professionalism (which I do take pride in), but that's where it ends.
I only take pride in the work I do for myself and as a service to the community. If I'll have no rights to the work, I take no pride in it; it's merely a mercantile exchange.
> No more so than "vaccinations cause autism" or "homeopathic medicine works" or "the stars direct your fate".
For extra fun/rage/narrative-catalyzing: negate your claims and re-ask the questions.
> It's an unsubstantiated, novel claim about causation that has no peer reviewed research to support it.
Do claims of nonexistence have a burden of proof, and if not:
a) why not?
b) can you cite any authority that explicitly asserts that they do not (as opposed to only pointing out the epistemic difficulty (teapots, etc))?
And even setting aside those rarely considered details:
> "It's an unsubstantiated, novel claim about causation that has no peer reviewed research to support it."
...even if we assume this to be true, do any specific necessarily correct conclusions derive from that observation? (And if not...actually, I think we have enough to chew on for now).
> But to present it as fact requires[!] extraordinary evidence.
Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. You see a lot of references to studies, but take a moment to actually follow the links and see what the studies say. Then come back and look at his many conjectures.
The reason why "internal interruptions" occur is because you get tired and your mind wanders. That is your cue to TAKE A DAMN BREAK! We're not machines. Trying to optimize your "flow state" is a fool's errand. Just keep a healthy, distraction-free work environment and work with what your body allows.
And it's not the scheduled interruptions such as meetings and such that destroy flow; it's the unscheduled interruptions. So if you don't want to be prematurely pulled out of your flow, make sure you keep your schedule in your mind, and do whatever you can to ensure that nobody interrupts you on a whim.
And if someone does, it's not the end of the world. Rebuilding the state in your mind is a LOT easier the second time than the first! If it happens too often, bring it up with the boss.
Also: Flow is not necessary or even desirable at all times. Many times you just want to be out for a walk while your fabulous brain rekejiggers things in the background. Or just walk away from it so that you can come back and look at it from a different perspective! Or have a chat with concerned persons to make sure the design makes sense. Flow isn't the answer to everything (or even most things).
Flow is not something to optimize or life hack. My advice after 30 years in the industry is: Just do your job adequately. No one at your funeral is going to eulogize your work performance.