[betenoire]

I don't like this tip at all. I get the sentiment, getting started is the HARDEST part of the day for me. But if I can finish something now, why wait until tomorrow?

It's a golden rule sort of thing. I'm imagining the HR person saying, "It will only take a few minutes to fix this for you, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow". Examples are endless.

There are better ways to get myself going in the morning, than to leave myself softballs from the previous day. Learning to make myself a realistic and attainable plan for the day works better for me.

[campbel]

I like the closure so I can take my mind off the task and onto home life. Leaving stuff hanging just means I'll be performing the task mentally all night.

[namuol]

> if I can finish something now, why wait until tomorrow?

The end-of-day-just-one-more fix is likely to be lower-quality than the fresh-start-after-a-good-night’s-sleep fix.

[crazygringo]

I'm exactly the opposite. All the functions and data structures are fresh in my head. The end-of-the-code is high quality.

First-code-of-the-day is much more likely to be buggy for me because I still haven't reloaded all the content into my brain.

(Unless I'm starting something from scratch, in which case start-of-the-day is great, but how often is that happening?)

[crazygringo]

* end-of-the-day-code, haven't reloaded all the context

Apparently I couldn't proofread yesterday

[ryanwaggoner]

I think it’s different if someone is waiting on the immediate output of your work.

But in your example, if the HR person needs to process 1000 documents this month and mine is one of them, I’d much prefer they use this process to help them actually get through all that, rather than struggle to start every day and get less done over the course of the month.

[teh_klev]

> I think it’s different if someone is waiting on the immediate output of your work.

I partially agree, something needs to be on fire or a complete showstopper for that to happen. My only other reason would be helping out a colleague who's trapped in a gravity well of fail and needs a bit of help and support.

[spaceywilly]

I’ve had good luck as well with the practice of leaving myself a “head start” to pick up in the morning. It seems like it wouldn’t help that much, but in practice it makes the task of getting back into the programming zone much easier. Seems like just one of those ways to trick our brains into working a little better.

[sametmax]

It's not about not finishing as much as it is about letting something in unfinished state.

You can finish what you are doing right now, and start something else to get a clear view of the next step. Or take something you want to fix, and put a breakpoint it it and plenty of print, to make it sure nothing works and the day after you know where to start.

It's all about breaking the inertia.

But if you want your win, you can have your win.

[mupuff1234]

I think the point is that it's much harder to start something new then it is to just complete something that you already know exactly what to do.

Kinda like how it's harder to start writing from a blank page.

[averageRoyalty]

Interesting. I am the polar opposite of this. New things invigorate me, and I can often slam through a project to 90% but it takes me days or sometimes weeks to motivate myself to do the last 10%.

Once I can convince myself and start just doing it, I can usually get that done quick too, but there's a mental barrier of high difficulty to overcome first, and I'm compelled to be doing something new instead.

[betenoire]

Right, and I get that. My point was there are better ways to achieve that than simply not finishing your work

[teh_klev]

> getting started is the HARDEST part of the day for me.

For you, yes. But remember not everyone is a night owl, nor is everyone an early bird. I start work at 930am, we have our stand up, then I warm up with 30-45 mins of coffee, reading some techy stuff etc, and then I'm ready to roll.

> why wait until tomorrow?

Because it's the end of the "working day"() and my mind isn't at its peak performance.

> I'm imagining the HR person saying, "It will only take a few minutes to fix this for you, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow". Examples are endless.

A whole heap of things aren't that time critical at the end of the working day. If I've had a problem with my salary or some revision to my contract it can wait until the morning.

But if you want to go ahead and knock yourself out with another 2-4 hours of work on top of your working day (and contractually obligated hours) then beware of burnout. Pace yourself.

depending on when you start your working day, which doesn't need to be 9am. Personally I used to start at 10am because of flexitime and work on until maybe 7pm or until there's at natural cut off

[gausswho]

Your eloquent aghastery makes me smile and want to elucidate.

But I can't. I am still waking, slowly. And I am Ok with that. Because I believe I will when awoken move smoothly.

Leaving a bit at the end lights my lantern to tomorrow.

[4death4]

Yes, completely agree. A colleague left a PR hanging one day. A customer wrote the next day saying the missing functionality that would have been fulfilled by that PR wasted an hour of their time last night.