Do you want to get all your tasks done fast and furious? Shore up your spectacular software development work with this post!

The Imperfect Brain

Lets start with the brain – the most important organ for software development work (I would be surprised if you have even more important organ for this job). This biological tool, composed from 100 billion of neurons and many legacy structures inherited from worms, reptiles, mammals and other animals, is not really perfect for programming tasks.

I think I know – you want to have between ears obedient powerful and reliable machine like the shiny new computer on your desk that crunches tasks with the highest performance without taking breaks, emotional drops and losses of attention.

Unfortunately, our brain reminds more an old computer that barely runs your development activities competing with other processes for limited memory and processing resources on the top of overloaded unstable Brain OS.

Yes, writing software is not easy and not the most important biological mission for your busy brain. It is difficult to achieve top mental performance for your tasks, especially, if you are just doing your daily job and not writing the next Facebook in your basement.

How can we still squeeze good performance from our programmer’s favorite organ?

Problem definition

Goal:
Great mental performance for development tasks

Desirable Condition:
Focused & Productive Brain

Main obstacles

1. Unclear goals – brain confusion with lack of certain direction and understanding what to do
2. Dissipated Time – absence of dedicated committed time for the task opens rich possibilities to avoid hard work and procrastinate.
3. Multi-tasking – running several activities in the same time significantly drops your IQ.
4. Insufficient energy – tired, emotionally overwhelmed or indifferent brain is not productive at all
5. Distractions – frequent interruptions do not allow to immerse into the task
6. Mismatching task – too boring or challenging tasks prevent full brain engagement
7. Brain overload – complex, dull or voluminous information inhibits your brain operational abilities.

There are three elements of your performance

1. Tasks – what should be done.
2. Time – how long and what way you work on your tasks.
3. Mind – mental energy and abilities to get tasks done.

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