The steady rhythm of school and myriad 30-minute break periods it produces throughout the day have a good effect on my productivity, which is surprising. There's that famous Paul Graham essay where he talks about hacker schedules, or how programmers/creators prefer long periods of focused time over short fragmented work periods (that managers tend to prefer) because there's an overhead cost to loading a project into your head. focus personal-reflection
Actually, I'm not sure which I prefer yet. I have noticed, however, that sometimes I'll sit down to work for 2 hours, and proceed to waste it all, until the last 20 minutes or so, when I become desperate to get something done so the entire period wasn't a waste of time. That 20 minutes is often incredibly productive. When I only have pockets of 30 minute breaks throughout the day to work on a project, it's like every break is that last 20 minutes of a 2 hour work period. Or not, sometimes I end up getting nothing done, wishing I had 2 hours to do deep, focused work. focus personal-reflection
I do think it's far from clear which schedule is better, at least personally speaking.focus personal-reflection
Writing cascades
If I start an exegesis brain dump (what I call my journal entries when I post them to twitter) and post it, it makes me more likely to continue writing in it throughout the day. Once I start writing, more thoughts and ideas come to me. It's as if my brain suddenly realizes there's an outlet for thoughts, and so it generates more of them. Having good conversations has a similar effect. writing personal-reflection
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