Coding at the Speed of Smooth

I used to play online poker professionally (2009–2011) and it involved making multiple decisions in a limited amount of time. I was fast. My speed was a great strength in certain situations and a great weakness in others. By playing more hands faster I was making more money…theoretically.

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I would hit plateaus where I was only thinking about what came immediately after my decision instead of giving myself room to think more creatively and about the decisions to come. This had a direct impact on my results. Instead of giving my brain time to filter all of the important information and plan ahead I was rushing and it was killing my progress and my winrate. It was (and still is) hard for me to pump my mental brakes. Similar to these plateaus is what I experience this week doing a Ruby on Rails exercise.

We had an assignment where we had to make a rails CRUD app from scratch and I got hung up early on with a simple syntax error in my migration. Instead of naming my migration “Statuses” it was named “Status”. My brain reacts to pressure with speed because that’s how it has been conditioned. Trying to get it done quickly took far longer than it would have going slowly. Going fast at trying to fix a bug or adding a feature is like slamming on the gas in the snow. Your tires are gonna spin really fast and you aren’t going to get anywhere. It is only in the application of gentle pressure and a slow speed that progress is made.

Being able to think and react quickly has been great for my workflow but the main adjustment I need to make is to do everything slower and with a more methodical mentality. The easiest way to do this is by writing down the solutions I think are possible, crossing them off a list, and asking the right questions.

In coding one thing will always be true for me: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”

Until next time!
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