[atoav]

The crazy thing about this is that it can be purely mental. My most productive coding session this year happened when I had to quarantine and I knew my employer wouldn't mind if I just did nothing. There was no pressure, but I still wanted to move on a little bit with the project. Just a few hours a day. I mai ly did this because I like the project and I would get into a lot stress later if it was not done.

I got more done in two half-days at home than in a week of full days at the office. No distractions, no meetings, no obligation to answer mails and phone calls. Paradise.

[blitzar]

"In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity."

You entered this state.

[quickthrower2]

Thats why I think the approach ti estimates and project planning should be: developers are trusted not to slack off and not to over engineering it. So it takes as long as it takes. But if it might go up an order of magnitude talk to the team to see if it is still worth doing or how to reduce scope.

Instead of the usual estimate, negotiate the dev down, use a mythical man-month then bollock them for not getting it done on time (ok these days microaggressions are in fashion as you can’t outright yell)

[therealdrag0]

I also do this (flow on my own mini projects) a few times a year it seems.

I think it’s easy to idealize it, but likely those times are enabled by cultivation of your thought during all the other times at work, and there’s a selection bias of I know that you can accomplish it in that time. Basically it’s a well defined task already specc’d out (or defined bounds or a path forward) in your mind ahead of time. This is just as important to flow as removing distractions.