[Swizec]

What a fantastic essay. Long ago I had the same hunch and likened having the internet around me to running with a parachute.

These days I am little better at avoiding consumption, if not worse. I think it's inevitable. And I think on net it may be a good thing. Yes you lose time and focus by dipping your toes into the zeitgeist, but you also make sure you work on things that are relevant. The open vs closed door from Hamming's You and Your Research.

The closed-door researcher produces more work, but the open-door researcher produces impactful work. Who was ultimately more productive?

The key, I find, is to do a bit of both. Work on hard things with deep focus and validate against the zeitgeist regularly.

edit: Found it. Almost the exact same post (in gist) from 2011 when I was 24, similar age as OP. https://swizec.com/blog/my-ideas-are-shitty-so-im-going-on-a...

[brightball]

It’s actually one of the best arguments for pairing/mobbing that people don’t like to talk about.

When you are sitting at a keyboard with other people, there’s no chance you’re going to browse. You and everyone else involved will be 100% focused on the task.

They actually tested this with brainwave scans and found that concentration levels were significantly higher than working independently.

[swatcoder]

> You and everyone else involved will be 100% focused on the task.

That's not the strict positive you seem to suggest. In creative arts, like many of us practice in software engineering, being 100% focused is not the way to get things done. Your conscious, focused attention can only take you so far, and the best work is often influenced by the weird associations and spontaneous insights that come from setting the work down and doing other things.

Now, that's not to say there isn't some extreme on the other end, where you just never actually sit down and write code or whatever because you're always so distracted, but the sweet spot you want to aim for is somewhere in the middle. For many people, pair (mob??) programming is waaaay too far to one side. Although if it works for you as part of a fuller, balanced, practice, you wouldn't be alone in that yourself.

[Swizec]

> When you are sitting at a keyboard with other people, there’s no chance you’re going to browse. You and everyone else involved will be 100% focused on the task.

The ADHD community calls this body doubling and yes it works.

[serf]

the problem being that focus isn't the sheer soul metric that establishes productivity, its' field dependent.

similar studies on body doubling also showed participants feeling more social pressure to conform to well-established methods rather than branching out and experimenting, and similarly participants felt more judged whenever they ended up taking a risk that either didn't pan out or did so differently than imagined.

I don't want every workplace in the world to conform to whatever standards produce straight productivity; as a human, even one with adhd, I want to feel that there is room for cleverness and creativity in the world I work in.

[brightball]

> similar studies on body doubling also showed participants feeling more social pressure to conform to well-established methods rather than branching out and experimenting, and similarly participants felt more judged whenever they ended up taking a risk that either didn't pan out or did so differently than imagined.

Fwiw, when it comes to mobbing, there are several cornerstone rules of engagement that Woody insists on, which in practice alleviate a lot of these concerns.

#1 - Courtesy, Kindness and Respect

Establishing how people want to be treated to feel like they can thrive in the environment is probably the absolute most critical item to success here.

#2 - When opinions differ, try each option and see what works best

You shouldn't be solving disagreements or differences in approach with social pressure or good arguments. Prototype each different idea and figure out as a team what the ideal solution really is. This encourages branching out and experimenting.

Both are really critical to healthy mobs. When those 2 rules are followed, the team typically thrives.

[Swizec]

Yes you have to use appropriate methods for the task/problem at hand. This is uncontroversial.

Body doubling is good for clear tasks with clear outcomes. When you're at the "figuring out what to even do here" stage, you need a different approach. Sometimes the most productive path forward is to sit in a hammock and just think for 3 hours.

[deadbabe]

Not true. These mobs often become a theater production where everyone pretends to be focused but they’re just collectively pushing along until hopefully someone solves the problem and they are released from their torturous exercise.

[brightball]

That’s just how meetings in general often work.

[ClumsyPilot]

poorly run meetings that is. This usually indicates the process is wrong, or you have wrong people on the call, or without preparation.

[skydhash]

Yeah, software engineering is a collective activity, but programming is not. From my limited experience with pair programming, it would be faster to design on a whiteboard, partition the tasks, and then review each other code.

[phist_mcgee]

My very first day at a new company I was shown around the office and met my team. At 10.30am I was invited to a mobbing session, where I was asked to contribute to writing to some code.

I did not have a single inkling of what the project was in detail or understood anything that was being talked about or written. But I was expected to 'contribute' in a performative way to show that I was useful to the team. It was perhaps the worst intro to a company you can have.

To this day I despise mob programming.

[brightball]

Participating in a mob on day 1 is a very common on-boarding experience. If you're driving, the rest of the team should be guiding you. If you're navigating with no knowledge of the project, you should be observing and asking questions.

The intention is supposed to be "No pressure, come see how we work and meet the team. Feel free to join in if you see something."

There's no faster way to ramp somebody up than onboarding with a mobbing session. Typically you even use the new person's machine so the team can help make sure everything is setup for them to be productive and help work through any unexpected quirks rather than making you figure it out yourself.

If you were asked to jump in and lead with no knowledge, then yes that was terrible.

If you're open to seeing how beneficial the process can be, I'd recommend reading Software Teaming. Great book and establishes all the core rules about what makes a mob work. The most critical rule? Participation has to be voluntary.

[phist_mcgee]

I don't think it's a good idea at all. Myself and the other new hire were terribly confused, we barely remembered our team member's names, and of course there were nerves on the first day.

I disagree that onboarding this way was the fastest, how could any reasonable person be expected to learn a project going in blind in an atmosphere like that?

[brightball]

You aren’t supposed to. The team is supposed to help you get setup, help you navigate around the project, essentially telling you what to type almost when you’re in front of the keyboard. You’ll be taking a tour.

When you aren’t in front of the keyboard, everything will continue with somebody else while the rest of the team continues to talk through the problem. On day 1, your only contribution is probably going to be familiarizing yourself with how things are setup and maybe asking some questions.

I think whoever set this up for you did a really poor job of explaining the intention.

[exitb]

Wouldn’t that lead to burnouts?

[panzagl]

You don't pair for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

[cynicalpeace]

Is there a service/product that does this?

[grahamplace]

Check out https://www.flow.club/

[egypturnash]

cafes, co-working spaces, going in to the office

[CamperBob2]

Honestly, that's how AI-assisted coding works -- just assume you're sitting there with a fellow human who doesn't like their time being wasted.

[Terr_]

If only it could return the favor.

[swatcoder]

> Yes you lose time and focus by dipping your toes into the zeitgeist, but you also make sure you work on things that are relevant.

> The closed-door researcher produces more work, but the open-door researcher produces impactful work.

These are not real dichotomies.

Without defending the shortcomings of the focused, closed-door approach, which you seem to take for granted, chasing the zeitgeist and keeping the door open seem to have little do with staying relevant or being impactful.

Relevance and impact are hard to come by altogether, and I think anyone here can think of far more (innumerable) zeitgeist-chasing, open-door-keeping peers who never stumbled upon relevance or impact than those that have. And for as many as they can identify, they could probably find just as many (few) among the focused, closed-door types.

Chasing the zeitgeist might make you feel more relevant, but it's generally deceptive. What happens more often, seemingly, is that you get caught up in the countless ephemeral fashions and distractions that blip into and out of the social consciousness, always finding yourself having just missed the opportunity to play some meaningful role in things. Maybe it's because you arrived at the party too late, or you weren't prepared, or you bet on in the wrong horse again, or somebody else stepped in your way, etc.

Be careful taking for granted that what feels rewarding is actually bringing you closer to your goals. When you keep getting that wrong in the same way, we just call it addiction.

[liontwist]

> zeitgeist

> impactful work

these are opposites in my experience