Ask HN: How do you overcome the problems of task switching?

I've found that starting a new problem when my mind was previously focused on finishing a different big project is difficult but doable. First thing is take a 5 or 10 minute break away from the computer to clear your mind a bit. When you get back, open the issue or requirements for the next project and keep it on the screen with nothing else then sit on your hands and stare at it until your mind starts to wonder about whats possible and how you can do things. I do recommend physically sitting on your hands if you have a habit of browsing the internet when unmotivated.

It's like you need to repeatedly and unintentionally expose your mind to information that pertains to the project before you get into the flow of working on it. Just staring at it with no other outlets for activity or inlets of information forces the issue and speeds up how your brain is loaded with necessary information so that solving the problem becomes easy.

So another way to say it is remapping your working memory has a high cost until the previous information naturally falls out and your motivation and desires depend on that. So make it easy to move information into your working memory by making it the only information available. Instead of hackernews/reddit, put up the issue and reqs.

Also, for everyone else saying that you're not a robot, screw that. With the right techniques you can be a robot like the rest of us.

SeriousM · 8 years ago

Oh man, it feels like you know me and my habits :)

Having the issue to be the only information available is a great advice! Thank you sir

cimmanom · 8 years ago

If sitting and staring at the screen doesn't work well for you, or if you get flak for not looking busy, grab some scrap paper or a notebook, and scribble in it everything that comes to mind about the new problem.

hakanderyal · 8 years ago

I'm using the same technique to get myself into "flow". When I'm unmotivated and out of flow, it becomes really hard to start working, whether it's a new task, or continuing where I left off.

Staring my personal backlog, my mind starts to imagine the possible solutions, alternatives, and after some time depending on the complexity of the task at hand, I start working autonomously, fully motivated. If I even take a half minute break from staring for HN/Reddit/Email before I begin working, I need to restart the cycle. Knowing the weaknesses of my mind really helps.

andrei_says_ · 8 years ago

I’d add “actively resist the desire to distract yourself during the uncomfortable transition time.”

Maybe take a 2 min walk or go to the restroom instead of switching to a mind-distraction task.

penetrarthur · 8 years ago

Thanks! This is is very useful.

One step is to acknowledge that you're not supposed to be good at task switching. It takes a negative toll on everybody. Our brains just aren't very good at it. Because of this, your employer, if you have one, should take steps to minimize the amount of task switching required, or at least try to give you blocks of time you can dedicate to focused tasks.

That said, task switching is a practical reality, so coping strategies are important, too.

For help with that, check out Cal Newport's "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World" (https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...). Full disclosure: He and I share a literary agent.

aacook · 8 years ago

I've been practicing deep work since reading Cal's book just after it was released. Like any of the good habits it's a tough one to form and keep but the outcome can be tremendous. Deep work has allowed me crank on https://nanagram.co solo. I do one thing at a time. While I'm doing that task I'm basically disconnected from the world - No email, no messaging, no phone, nothing. I've got 2 kitchen timers on my desk: One set to 60min, the other 15min. I spend the whole day offline alternating between focused tasks for 60min and 15min breaks. I'm constantly surprised by how much I can accomplish with 40min still left on the timer. During the 15min breaks I stay offline. Using this approach of doing one thing at a time I find it's relatively easy to flow from one thing to the next. Unless I crack and get pulled into a network tool :)

For longer, 2-3 day tasks, I completely log off and don't connect to the world until it's done. This means avoiding any network tool through the evenings and mornings until the stretch is over. Easier said than done. Some of my family and friends think I'm weird or get frustrated by my inaccessibility. But they get over it.

After a 2-3 day deep binge like the OP I also face challenges moving from one discipline (say programming) to another (a marketing video). One tool I use is yoga. For a while I had a daily meditation habit going but it's been replaced with 2-3x / week hot yoga. I find it has a way of cleansing my mind and energizing me for the next thing. I also go on fat bike rides to unlock the power nature's constant stimuli has on your mind as Cal talks about in the book.

jesscxc · 8 years ago

Really interesting and helpful advice, thanks. Saved it to a personal wiki for stuff like this.

I use a kitchen timer, too, which has minutes and seconds (e.g., digital).

Some tasks with too much inertia/resistence I ask: "Can I work on this for 5 minutes? 2 minutes? 15 seconds?"

That will build momentum and show that it's often not as hard as it seems when you're on the other side of history.

rob_b · 8 years ago

The acknowledgment that task switching is difficult when fully immersed in an existing focus that requires creative thinking has been an area of conflicting points of view in my current position as a developer, especially since I tend to play project manager and business analyst consistently in my projects. The tasks individually may not always seem that difficult from the surface, but they always seem to require the necessary attention to ensure they are resolved efficiently and effectively, which can be difficult when you’re trying to orchestrate everything while trying to make sure that one piece specifically is executed properly. I’ve been told that’s just how things go and there’s no getting around it so I’ve been forced to adopt my own strategies. My constant insistence that there are times that I will be working on one thing and nothing else unless the sky is falling has helped to a point, although the way this has often been executed results in me pulling an all-nighter so that I can focus without distractions. Reviewing my time sheets will show adjoining 16-19 hour days when I’m working on a large project just due to the fact that I’ve built up inertia and I know that may not last once a client issue comes up or a new project comes down the pipeline. It’s not all bad though and I somewhat seem to thrive to be honest. I think a lot of it just comes down to how you’re wired and having an employer that is able to sympathize with you.

hollander · 8 years ago

I see that this is a workbook for So Good They Can't Ignore You. How did it help you? Thanks for the tip.

terminalcommand · 8 years ago

I didn't know that Deep Work was a workbook for SGTCIY. In fact, I read Deep Work as a separate book. And I haven't yet read SGTCIY.

If you're interested in improving your productivity by simplifying your work, it is a good book.

But like all self-help books its effect wears off over time.

Keep in mind that Cal Newport is an academic at MIT. He has autonomy, he works in a field he loves etc. For other people his point of view is valuable, but his advice IMHO is not that easy to follow. You may need to improvise and find your own way.

Dead Comment

drenvuk · 8 years ago

jawns · 8 years ago

unoti · 8 years ago

I’m cursed with some kind of attention disorder and can’t keep track of what the heck is going on when I context switch. So over the years I developed this system:

I keep notes of what I’m doing and what I’ve learned as I do my work. I keep a separate note document for each task/project. I do this in One Note so that it syncs to my phone and I can attach clean processed images of whiteboards. But I used to do this with plain text files and vi. Either way I indent sub tasks.

In this document I break out and list all the things I’m going to do, with either a checkbox in one note or a [ ] if I’m using text. When I have done the task I change it to [x], and when I start the task I change it to [.]

When I get interrupted, I switch to the other file and keep track of what I’m doing there. When I switch back to the original task I scan the file and look for the [.] and that’s where I need to resume working. This step is crucial and helps me avoid the situation where it takes me 20 minutes to re-aclimate and remember what I need to do next.

Each day I do work I make an entry in the text file that tells me things below this line are in this date. As I complete projects I put the documents into a history folder keyed by date. This also lets me go back and see what I was doing on a particular date. This helps me avoid that “blank stare” feeling I get when management inevitably asks me why the task took so long or what the hell I’ve been doing all week. I’m not a slacker, I just need systems to help me overcome my memory and attention deficiencies.

You mentioned having trouble finding the willpower to go back and resume a project. A big cause of procrastination is not having faith that you’ll be productive with the project in the time you have available to work. Having the work broken down into achievable measurable chunks is key to fixing this problem. And that’s the major part of what this note system is all about fixing.

andy_ppp · 8 years ago

You aren’t a robot, ride the waves and stop trying to optimise everything. There is nothing wrong here - it sounds like most of the time you are productive and then find you need a break to begin something new. I always look at this as being a time for communication and “soft” work or learning something new. It’s a positive for everyone if you make use of this time to develop yourself and learn and communicate. Good luck.

dboreham · 8 years ago

Another thing to bear in mind is that at least some of your colleagues are likely to be actively breaking stuff while they are "being productive". So in their productivity they achieve negative progress. You, by taking a break or a nap or whatever, are in fact achieving more than they do.

k6k7f7uky8ki · 8 years ago

Only 'goofing off' for 0.5 out of 4 days seems pretty good.

hliyan · 8 years ago

This used to happen to me until I found why I lack the willpower to start (at least in my case). The tasks were too big. I started using GTD (with a tool called Nirvana) and slicing all my "tasks" into units small enough to be executed in five minutes.

E.g. rather than "Research using Foobar in the next mobile project", the first task is "Write a Foobar Hello World". Rather than "Write proposal for project X", the first task is "Draw logical architecture diagram for X".

I find the inertia against getting started is a lot less when the task is a five-minute, self-contained unit. It also helps task switch because you don't treat them like links in an unbroken chain of tasks, but individual units.

Only downside: you have to spend some work up front slicing your projects into smaller units. It's kind of analogous to story slicing...

karljtaylor · 8 years ago

I prefer this solution as well, as I think it biases towards action, but I think it also creates a little bit of burden around communicating subtasking about projects back out at the medium level.

muzani · 8 years ago

I personally see it as a skill, and one that should be self trained.

Trick 1: Improve your cardio health.

Generally a balanced meal gives you a lot of willpower. Cardio exercise specifically seems to improve recover rate a lot, not just physical but mental.

Trick 2: Develop a trigger.

Find a routine, a kind of trigger that puts you in the mood to work. There's a trigger already built into all of us, a moment of serenity that we see as taking a break.

This is the kind of productive thing that makes you work late at night, or weekends, or continue nonstop for 20 hours straight. It might not even be work - it could be a game, book, or some tedious hobby like woodworking.

I use Linkin Park songs because my productive moments were making games in school. I also saw Chester Bennington as a role model, because of his emotional drive and his success as a VC. Some of his songs also resonate with me on a spiritual level. His suicide got to me, and I find his songs as a sudden reminder of why I do what I do.

It doesn't have to be a song. It can be something like flipping a coin between your fingers, taking a deep breath, pumping your fist, a 5 minute meditation. The more portable the better - you don't want it to be something like eating a can of spinach.

You also need to associate the trigger with positive things. One of my mistakes was poisoning an old trigger with death marches.

Whenever you hit a moment of pure joy, try to associate that with your trigger. It could be the completion of a tough patch of work, playing with kids, breathing fresh morning air.

There's a lot of principles that go into this, but I would recommend the books The Power of Habit and The Art of Learning if you want more details.

socialentp · 8 years ago

For me it comes down to inertia. When I'm working on a project, I can barely get myself to stop, but when I do stop, it takes some time to get started again. My trick is: as soon as I finish one project, I open up everything I need for the next project, then start my break. When I open up my computer next time, seeing everything there ready to go makes it much easier to jump right back in. This task switching problem was actually a big motivator behind why we built Workona.

jack_pp · 8 years ago

No idea what workona is and too lazy to look but in my opinion it sounds weird

curun1r · 8 years ago

A few ideas:

- Don't do large tasks. Spending more time up-front breaking down a large task into smaller, more-manageable tasks might help. This is something that many engineers struggle with, but there are huge advantages to this kind of discipline that go beyond taming your concentration issues, so this could be valuable in more ways than one.

- As others have said, go for a walk. There's something about activating our peripheral vision and looking from side to side that activates different parts of our brains and makes us more creative. It's even used as a therapeutic technique (EMDR) for dealing with PTSD.

- Find non-project tasks that you can do to fill less productive gaps. Do code reviews, go back to old projects and fill-in additional test coverage, play with some new technology/tool...a lot of teams neglect hygiene tasks anyways, so you may benefit from acknowledging your weaknesses and trying to make the best of it.

- Offer to pair with engineers for the rest of the day. If you know you can't be productive for that time period on your own, perhaps you can add value as an extra set of eyes.

- Don't fight it, embrace it. There's a mantra in startups to embrace your limitations. As engineers, we're not nearly as good at problem solving when we have no constraints. But when there's some real-world concern that points us in a particular direction, it's often easier to find the right solution. So look at this the same way. Don't beat yourself up about it. Be kind to yourself and accept that it's just a reality. Once you do that, put on your engineering hat and think of how best to deal with an unideal situation. Because situations are never ideal in the real world.

- Learn to meditate, particularly anapana meditation where you train yourself to concentrate on nothing but the breath. Concentration is a skill that can be practiced. It may be that you're not able to concentrate on something new because you're still concentrating on your previous task. Learning to clear your mind may help you move on to something new after a short break.

Best of luck!