Ask HN: How to manage focus in a stop and go workflow

[helvetican]

I work with data, and my typical workflow involves cycles of high focus(e.g. writing data extract SQL code)for ~15 minutes and low focus (e.g. waiting the extract to return data) for ~5 minutes. I repeat the cycle continuously. Lately, it takes more mental overhead to come back to high focus mode because my mind wonders too far during low focus mode. Does anyone share this situation and was able to overcome? Kindly share your experience. I am open to workflow adjustment as well.

[NikhilVerma]

I don't have the same situation as you but generally when I am faced with a situation like this I often end up doing two high focus things one after another.

So when your query is running for 5 mins you can switch to something of a similar nature (another query perhaps?).

[helvetican]

I agree that having two streams would optimize my time, but my problem is with the switching. Regardless of to what, the coupling and de-coupling is an overhead for me.