You sat down to write
the import job.
First, the terminal prompt
was showing the wrong branch colour.
Ten minutes.
Then the formatter
was disagreeing with the linter
about trailing commas.
Twenty.
Then you found a plugin
that runs the test under the cursor,
and it needed a keybinding,
and the keybinding clashed
with something else.
By lunch the editor was beautiful.
The import job
was an empty file.
Tool tuning
is the best disguise
procrastination has ever worn.
It is technical.
It is satisfying.
It ends in something
you can see working.
And every change
genuinely saves a second,
so there is always a reason.
But look at when it happens.
Almost never on a good day,
when the work is clear
and the next step is obvious.
It happens on the morning
the real task
has no clear first move,
and your hands want
something that does.
The arithmetic is not kind either.
A shortcut that saves two seconds,
used thirty times a day,
needs about a month
to pay back the hour
you spent setting it up.
Most of them
you stop using in a week.
So make tuning a scheduled thing,
not a reflex.
Keep a list
called annoyances.
When the tool gets in your way,
write one line
and go straight back to the task.
Do not fix it now.
When the same annoyance
has been written down three times,
it has earned a fix.
Then give fixes one slot.
Friday afternoon,
one hour,
work down the list
from the most repeated.
Close the slot on time
even if the list is not empty.
And when you notice yourself
opening the settings file
on a weekday morning,
treat it as a signal
about the other task.
Ask what you do not know
about the import job.
Write that down instead.
That question
was what the morning was really about.
A fast editor
pointed at nothing
is still nothing.
Ship the job first.
The editor will wait for Friday.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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