Thoughts of a Goldfish by Daniel Brolund

May 21, 2009

Pancake programming

Filed under: agile — Tags: , , — danielbrolund @ 14:32

About an hour ago I was again making pancakes while programming. 1 minute in the pan on each side for programming time, then 20 seconds of flipping our pouring in a new one as break or retrospective. This resembles the Pomodoro Technique, but at a much higher frequency.

I found the rhythm rather comfortable. I want to believe that in an uncertain environment short feedback cycles are more beneficial than longer, and I wasn’t quite sure where to go with the code at the time.

There could also be some primal resonance with the 1 min 20 sec period, but I haven’t done any research on that.

It could also be that I have a brain disorder, but I’ll ignore that possibility for now.

1 Comment »

  1. :) I have the same thing. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” or so I would like to believe…

    Seriously; at some times it feels like I have too much traffic going through my neurons so “the passages” become congested, and that is when I find it beneficial to have the short cycles of creative thinking interlaced with a more automated activity (be it pancake making, surfing on shoes sites or organizing my Saintpaulias list…) I feel it “normalizes the traffic” in a way, making the flow of the main activity smoother, as illogical that may sound.

    Comment by Jelena — September 25, 2009 @ 17:33


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