I Code Better Without A Computer

Alright so this might sound a little silly because we need a computer to actually write code. However, I find that most of my best design, code, and refactoring efforts happen when I am not at a computer. This has been a common theme for me since college where I would wake up with a thought about some problem I was working on but could not resolve while conscious. I would literally wake up some nights with an answer to something that I obsessed about during the day.

I continue to find myself doing the same thing with my code. This happens when I am driving, sleeping, watching TV, playing WoW, showering (don't think too hard on that one) or while my wife is trying to carry on an important conversation (bad idea BTW). I just tell her that I was listening but spawned a new thread while she was talking. This tends to not work in my best interest so don't try that one. I will let you know when I think of a response that won't get you in trouble.

I guess I found out that I was not the only person who experiences this behavior when I attended Neal Ford's On the Lam from the Furniture Police presentation. There he explained how the right and left sides of your brain operate and how they contend for time. The right side of your brain is where your creative non-linear thoughts occur while the left side of you brain spends it's time with rational linear thought processes. It turns out that if you can occupy the left side of your brain with mundane white noise like sleeping, driving, showering, WoW, the wife, whatever...you free up time for your right brain to produce meaningful analytical abstractions without your left brain interfering.

How many times have you resolved an issue while you are in the process of explaining it to a coworker. Your own blabbering can shut down your right brain so your left brain can reason things out! Here is another cool technique that Neal Ford suggested which sounded bizarre at first to me but then made good sense (to me at least). He suggested putting a rubber duck on top of your monitor and when you get stuck you explain the issue to the duck. This is not a magic duck (I don't think). The point is you are freeing up your right brain to perform the tasks you are really interested in.

I am pretty interested in understanding more about how the brain functions and will probably read Andy Hunt's book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware. Maybe if I can control my mind I might be able to control my code. Those of you that know me might agree...