[dimal]

This pretty much describes my method of working as well. Often at the end of the day, when I’m not feeling like I have enough energy to solve anything new, I’ll spend some time just looking over some new problems I’ll have to solve in the next few days. I don’t try to solve them. I’m just “loading them into my head”. The next morning I usually find some potential solutions waiting for me. Thanks, brain! I’ll repeat that process a few times until I have them solved. Unfortunately, while this works great in real life, it doesn’t work for interviews.

[TeMPOraL]

> I’ll repeat that process a few times until I have them solved. Unfortunately, while this works great in real life, it doesn’t work for interviews.

Nor does it work when you have a job and a deadline. Or kids.

When does it actually work for anyone these days?

[najra]

Would work fine for jobs or deadlines, as long as the deadline isn't always in a day or two.

Striving to focus on important problems instead of just urgent problems would work fine with this method.

[TeMPOraL]

Perhaps. One would have to dig themselves out of perpetually having a deadline a day or week ago, which is usually the reason one's looking for ways to improve productivity in the first place.

[charlie0]

Go meta here. You're trying to solve the wrong problem. Use this technique to get yourself out of this situation.

[pixl97]

At companies that set realistic deadlines and don't want to rush, rush, rush everything. They're rare, but some places do understand "slow is fast".

At least in the US the percentage of households with children under 18 has dropped to 40%, and I think you're somewhere in the EU which is closer to 36%.

[dimal]

What? Do you only start working on something the day before your deadline? Do you not plan ahead at all? If you’re always behind the eight ball, scrambling to land whatever you can slap together by the end of the sprint, it’s not going to work. But if that’s the situation you’re in, nothing will work. You’ve got to plan.

It worked fantastically for me at my last job as a lead, and it’s working great for me now as a consultant.