Whenever you’re doing a cognitively demanding task, such as programming, you should focus on the task at hand and limit other distractions.
All expertise is based on the habits and intuitive behavior you have. E.g., muscle-memory, though-models, heuristics, and the way you naturally approach problems. If you don’t separate the time between focused work and breaks, you teach your mind bad habits like multitasking. As a result, it becomes hard to solve cognitively demanding tasks. Your brain always prefers the tasks that cause less [[cognitive-load]]. If you don’t purposely focus, your brain learns that it can continuously switch to the easier tasks such as reading Twitter and Slack or watching funny memes.
Forcing yourself to focus on the task at hand also helps you find better ways of working and procrastinating less. When you have to focus on getting the thing done, you can better understand why the task feels so hard. E.g., the goal may be too abstract, you may fear that you fail, or you might not feel that the task is worthwhile.
In the big picture, the foundation for focusing during work is built by maintaining work-life balance and intrinsic motivation. On the micro-level, the single most important thing is to learn to keep breaks. People often try to focus for too long periods at a time. As a result, their brain tries to force a break by shifting focus.
An excellent way to learn focusing during work is time-boxing, where you have a specific time devoted to a specific task and breaks in between. E.g., Pomodoro can work. [//begin]: # “Autogenerated link references for markdown compatibility” [cognitive-load]: cognitive-load “Cognitive Load” [//end]: # “Autogenerated link references”