Natalie Houston talks about increasing productivity in terms of energy management – not time management. The idea here is to discover your own energy cycles. And then schedule (where possible) specific tasks to your different energy states. Coding in the early morning and testing in the afternoon after a nap may work for me but […]
Of course, we want mindfulness in our lives – or at least I do. I love being able to stay on target and focused on the job at hand. This is, of course, the end-state of a mindful life – being in the moment with no worries for the future and no regrets from the […]
Makers make and create – Managers manage people and things. Top -> down, bottom -> up – it gets complex. Especially when the two do not understand each others’ time blocking requirements. Makers need large blocks of uninterruptable time (usually >2 hours) so they can get into Flow. Managers have meetings and rarely need to […]
Bam – I love this. Those small tasks – off the list, done and dusted, high-fivin’ myself. Love getting s%&t done. If a task takes 2 minutes – just do it – heck, if you have 3, 4 or 5 2-minute tasks – just do ’em all first thing when you start your work. You’ll […]
Of course, we have things to do – lots of things to do. But I have always had problems trying to make sense of where to start, what to start and when to start. This idea of A Better To-Do List: The 1-3-5 Rule is cool in that it helps me sort what thing to […]
An interesting study on what makes developers unhappy. And some guidelines as to how to reduce “unhappiness.” And no, ping pong table ain’t it. Abstract: The happy-productive worker thesis states that happy workers are more productive. Recent research in software engineering supports the thesis, and the ideal of flourishing happiness among software developers is often […]
Some of our customers don’t want to use headphones. They’re in an office that gives them total privacy and want to use speakers if possible. I talked with the developers and what they suggested – reluctantly I might add: The ideal set-up is with a good, comfortable pair of headphones. But if you really want […]
This study researches how cognitive entrainment performance depends on the individual. Abstract: Enhancing human cognitive performance is a topic that continues to spark scientific interest. Studies into cognitive-enhancement techniques often fail to take inter-individual differences into account, however, which leads to underestimation of the effectiveness of these techniques. The current study investigated the effect of binaural beats, a […]
In this study, researchers investigated how binaural beats in the alpha and gamma range can increase creativity. “Results showed that binaural beats, regardless of the presented frequency, can affect divergent but not convergent thinking. (Divergent thinking refers to the generation of multiple answers to a given problem, while convergent thinking means aiming for a single, […]
It’s hard to create performance measurements for creative work like programming. But A/B testing is possible and here are a couple of ideas in the programming environment:Agile environment: Consider using your Burn Down chart. A great article from InfoQ talks deeply about burn down analysis. Compare burn down charts for individuals or teams before using […]