Taming the Wandering Mind for Programmers

There’s a point where I get frustrated with myself as a programmer, and two particular issues come up often. Staying on task and keeping my skills sharp. Surprisingly, these two problems have the potential to solve each other. Below is the mad formula…

• Make a StumbleUpon profile for Programming – There’s a little itch that starts to bother you in the midst of productivity, the need to satisfy your content addiction. Indulge it. In fact, get the Firefox add-on so it’s right there at your fingertips. If you feel the urge, just click the button and read. Do it for a while (up to 5 minutes). Try to force yourself to digest what you see, really read it.
• Get Delicious – or another web-based bookmark sharing profile. Put everything cool you find here, and tag them relevantly. If you are loosing significant time (5 or more minutes) to any diversion, save it and come back later.
• Make a Twitter for Programming – block every invite and follow only relevant technical tweets from heavy hitters like Scott Gu and Rob Connery. If they link something (including stuff on their own blog) go take 5 minutes to read about it, even if it doesn’t make any sense to you.

I did these things. Given a little time, an open mind and a very very small dose of discipline I’ve discovered the following…

• You begin to devour content about your field. Heartwarming programmer jokes, experimental frameworks and practical tools/patterns all have the potential to enrich your skills and love for programming. It’s productive.
• You never get stuck in anything too long which fosters the ability to get back on task.
• You give more time than you normally would to ideas you would dismiss out of hand. This is always good. Worse case is that you will find valid reasons to dislike or dismiss it which gives you the ability to speak intelligently about the subject. Best case is you find something perfect that revolutionizes the way you do what you do everyday.

Like any method or practice the above is only useful if it produces results. I can say it’s increased my fascination with the craft and my desire to do more. See if it works for you!