The "chop wood, carry water" methodology was a gift to me from my friend @dbrady, who once shared an amazing story about how he managed to be productive despite having only three or four "good brain" hours per day.
Here's Dave's story, paraphrased by me.
He wrote code for a living. Mornings were good, but after lunch he was... foggy. Couldn't think his way out of a wet paper javascript, and would find the phrase "wet paper javascript" hilarious.
He wrote code for a living. Mornings were good, but after lunch he was... foggy. Couldn't think his way out of a wet paper javascript, and would find the phrase "wet paper javascript" hilarious.
The solution: In the morning he wrote ZERO code. He would look at the results of the previous night's QA and build reports, review the feature list, and then grab a stack of Post-It notes.
On them, he'd write notes to himself about the code which needed to be written.
On them, he'd write notes to himself about the code which needed to be written.
You might know how stuff like that works. How you can be like "oh, THIS problem can be solved with a socket wrench, but you'll need an extender and some WD-40 to break the bolt free." You've IMAGINED yourself fixing the problem. The rest is just chop wood, carry water.
For Dave, it was more like "this block of code is failing on unexpected input conditions. Fix the three blocks feeding it so they dump bad data," except with actual scribbles of actual code snippets on the note.
Anyway, that was his whole morning: solving problems in his head, and making notes about the solutions, which he would then stick to his monitor.
By lunchtime his monitor was like a boxy, computer-faced lion, with a pixelated mane of Post-It all the way 'round.
By lunchtime his monitor was like a boxy, computer-faced lion, with a pixelated mane of Post-It all the way 'round.
And then he'd go to lunch. Putting food in himself was almost certainly what triggered the swap between "smart Dave" and "idiot Dave," but NOT eating would trigger OTHER things, so skipping lunch wasn't a solution (though I'm sure it was something he tried.)
After lunch he'd shamble back to his desk and sit down.
He'd stare at that halo of notes, that corona of Post-Its, and wonder (and I'm not making this up, these are Dave's words) who had been sitting at his desk all morning.
He'd stare at that halo of notes, that corona of Post-Its, and wonder (and I'm not making this up, these are Dave's words) who had been sitting at his desk all morning.
He'd pick up a note and stare at it, and tell himself "well, whoever they were, they're a lot smarter than me."
And then he'd think that MAYBE he could follow the instructions on the note.
The thinking had been done. Now? Chop wood, carry water.
And then he'd think that MAYBE he could follow the instructions on the note.
The thinking had been done. Now? Chop wood, carry water.
His mornings were furious, note-writing cascades of brilliance. His afternoons were dull and plodding. One note at a time, he'd follow the instructions that a smarter version of himself had left.
So... how does this apply to people whose biorhythmic brilliance is less predictable?
1) Figure out which parts of your job are thinky.
2) Figure out which parts of your job could be done by a monkey who has stolen your clothing.
3) Leave notes for the monkey.
1) Figure out which parts of your job are thinky.
2) Figure out which parts of your job could be done by a monkey who has stolen your clothing.
3) Leave notes for the monkey.
For me, scripting and penciling require the best brain. Inking (assuming the penciling wasn't lazy) is "chop wood, carry water." My job is almost perfectly configured for this model. I just need to make sure I don't spend good brain time on stuff like, oh, I dunno... Twitter.
This morning I'm chopping some very thinky wood, inking this explosion which my penciler (me) hadn't really figured out. 
