My kid will turn 4 this spring, so I've been dealing with fragmented time constantly for the past few years. It's been frustrating at times because I have tremendous mental energy, but can't get much done because I can rarely get more than 20-30 minutes of uninterrupted time. I've done a few things to make effective use of the time I have:
- Learn to manage workspaces efficiently on my OS. I can't afford to open all the files for a project and get significant work done, so I keep more projects open at a time. I went from typically using 4 workspaces before I had a kid, to consistently using 12 workspaces these days. It's nice to have 3-4 projects open, spread across 2-3 workspaces each.
- Documentation of my own projects. I keep a text file for each project, with notes about what's been working, where I'm getting stuck, and which resources are helpful. I've used more complicated tools at times such as issue trackers, but simple text files with names such as notes, next, and mental_dump still offer the least friction for recording the little notes that make it easier to pick up wherever I end up having to leave off when I get interrupted.
- Recognizing my mental state, and what I can get done in any given block of time. Sometimes that's moving a project forward, sometimes that's catching up on HN, sometimes it's reading a technical article I've kept open for a while. Sometimes it's recognizing I shouldn't try to get anything done, and I should sit and stretch instead.
I find that I'm using each of these strategies in my day job as well. I've got to go serve some porridge now, but those are a few things I've come up with.
- Learn to manage workspaces efficiently on my OS. I can't afford to open all the files for a project and get significant work done, so I keep more projects open at a time. I went from typically using 4 workspaces before I had a kid, to consistently using 12 workspaces these days. It's nice to have 3-4 projects open, spread across 2-3 workspaces each.
- Documentation of my own projects. I keep a text file for each project, with notes about what's been working, where I'm getting stuck, and which resources are helpful. I've used more complicated tools at times such as issue trackers, but simple text files with names such as notes, next, and mental_dump still offer the least friction for recording the little notes that make it easier to pick up wherever I end up having to leave off when I get interrupted.
- Recognizing my mental state, and what I can get done in any given block of time. Sometimes that's moving a project forward, sometimes that's catching up on HN, sometimes it's reading a technical article I've kept open for a while. Sometimes it's recognizing I shouldn't try to get anything done, and I should sit and stretch instead.
I find that I'm using each of these strategies in my day job as well. I've got to go serve some porridge now, but those are a few things I've come up with.