* DONE Productivity: Of Queues and Stacks :blog:productivity:reflection:
CLOSED: [2021-10-14 Thu 02:11]
:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       productivity-queues
:CREATED:  [2020-11-16 Mon 13:28]
:END:
:LOGBOOK:
- State "DONE"   from "DRAFT"      [2021-10-14 Thu 02:11]
- Edited on [2021-11-17 Wed 13:37]
- State "DRAFT"       from              [2020-11-16 Mon 13:28]
- IDEA [2020-08-28 Fri 01:34]
:END:
** Struggles
In the last weeks, I have struggled a lot with spending time on trivial issues.
I used to be able to focus very well,
but somehow my brain got used to a different style of working, and life:
Doing whatever I feel like.
And while there is a place for that,
I will get mildly depressed when I do it for too long,
because it rarely leads to progress.

While working like that, I also developed a common bad habit, which I always despised:
Having many open tabs.
I can't stand having more than around 5-10 tabs open.
These tabs often mark unfinished problems.
Interesting resources I tend to save for later as bookmarks so they do not occupy mental space
(though I wonder when I will ever look at all those piled up bookmarks again ^^).
Yet even then, when I start my workday with a blank browser everyday,
there was this phenomenon of getting deeper and deeper into this and that.
Every query leads to a host of tabs with tangientally related tasks.
It is a mode of operation I call unstructured research,
and it is rarely what you actually want.
Let us look into why.

** The Stack
As countless studies have shown,
context switches are poisonous to our focus and thus productivity,
a reason why messaging is often hazardous.
But opening many tabs, and then jumping back and forth between them,
trying to find out what they were for, wreaks the same havoc.

Instead of finishing one task and then looking into the next,
you immediately jump into new areas,
leaving the previous unfinished.
Thus tabs pile up, and when you get back around to them,
you have already forgot what they were for.
so you have to spend additional brainpower to catch back up - a waste.

This is the stack operating mode - whenever a new task pops up, work on it - last in, first out.
But as I outlined, this is a disservice to ourselves, so let me offer a simple and effective alternative.

#+LATEX: \clearpage
** The Queue
Instead of diving into each new topic as it pops up,
put the tab into the background or write it down,
and continue your current task.
If the new topic still seems important enough
after you have finished the previous ones, go ahead.
This has numerous advantages:
- You do not leave behind a trail of unfinished tasks,
  which often linger in the back of your head until you get back to them.
- Open programs/tabs do not pile up endlessly,
  because many issues emerge when branching out into unstructured research.
  When you take the tasks one by one, you also open opportunities one by one.
- Priorities are respected:
  Instead of getting sidetracked by more and more ideas,
  so that the most important task at hand is postponed again and again,
  you work on the planned things first
  and then consider what came up in the meantime.

I remember a time where I intended to work on a specific, short task in the morning.
For over a week I postponed it daily, even though I was on the computer a lot,
since I always encountered so many other opportunities.

Adopt the queue and get your productivity back - first in, first out!