Productivity (3 blogmarks)

The first thing that jumps out to me from the 2017 study is that on average 20-25% of developer time is spent navigating 😲

This anecdotally explains to me why I find vim so empowering and why I get so frustrated while trying to get where I need to be in other tools like VS Code. Vim (plus plugins) is optimized for navigation, so I can fly from place to place where I need to read code, check a test, make an edit, create a new file. Whereas in other ideas I feel like I’m trying to run in a swimming pool.

Even if your current setup and workflows feel good enough, you might be stuck in a local maxima. It's not necessarily that there is anything wrong with that, but if you're curious, there could be more to unlock.

breaking out from your local maxima of productivity is hard. most power-user tools will slow you down at first. productivity gains will only come once you've mastered them

I too have had the experience of feeling like I'm always tweaking my vim config and dotfiles and other settings, endlessly, in pursuit of... I'm not sure what. It's good to know when to stop.

but taste is not about endless tweaking and chasing that perfect neovim config. knowing when to stop is a skill in itself

It's about finding a balance between sharpening your tools and a pragmatism that recognizes other priorities.

On the topic of customizing your dotfiles and keeping them version controlled somewhere, the author mentions GNU stow.

In Using GNU Stow to manage your dotfiles, how to use stow for dotfiles is demonstrated.

Some time ago I happened across a mailing list posting where someone described using Stow to manage the installation of their dotfiles. I didn’t pay much attention to it but my brain must have filed it away for later. Yesterday I decided to give it a try and I have to say that it is so much more convenient than those other dedicated dotfile-management programs, even if it wasn’t an immediately obvious option.

Hidden goals are when you spend your time differently than what you said you wanted to do. At first glance, you might just call that being undisciplined. But it’s not the same.

I find this framing of hidden goals helpful. In period where I'm easily distractible, I'm pretty hard on myself. I berate myself, "why can't I be more focused, more disciplined with my time?" This gets closer to the truth of why I'm distracted. I have other goals, goals I haven't overtly acknowledged and they are pulling my focus from the thing I think I need to be devoting attention to at the moment. That's its own problem to work out, but at least it is less self-critical.

The article also gives some suggestions for how to navigate these times which all seem better than forcing yourself to push through it.