Feeling Productive
Why Do I Feel Like I Get Nothing Done?
A common concern that I hear when talking to new managers is the feeling that they’re getting nothing done. There are so many interactions and tasks in flight at any given time that it is almost impossible to focus properly. This feeling is especially common when a manager has spent a portion of their career as a developer.
Many people have written about how to keep developers productive. Often the essence of this writing is about arriving at and maintaining a state of flow for as long as possible, usually by arranging the day so that one can work uninterrupted. Doing this has tangible benefits: a developer’s productivity greatly increases in this flow state. Complex algorithms and infrastructure require developers to construct a mental map of the problem before progress can be made. Context switching and interruptions can destroy this mental map, which means they’ll need to recreate it before continuing.
In addition to individual developers arranging their time so that they can maintain flow, common processes in businesses also support this: for example, Scrum practices the sprint concept, where interruptions are kept to a minimum so that the committed work can be delivered.
However, as a new manager, you may be finding that no such protection exists for you! Constant…
