Ultimate timeboxing

I'm working on my train commute for one month. It's going great. So far, I'm looking forward to working on stuff. I've made a Caching proxy for Code:Stats. It saves a local copy of a request and in case of network disconnect data gets saved to mnesia - local database built into Erlang virtual machine. But that's an article for when syntax highlighting will be working on this site. Soon®

I simply like how I have small but not insignificant pockets of time throughout the whole working week. I'm not cutting away from family time. I just hop on a train, find a place to sit, turn on Honeyworks or other kind of music I have for work and write code till I get to my destination. I must pay attention when I go home because I almost missed my stop a few times.

On the other hand, I have just the time on my commute. Maybe a little when I'm at home or on weekends. There's no 5 more minutes. Well, there is when Czech Railways f*** up. So, I get 40 minutes on a train because it's broken, there are catenary wires torn apart, signals misbehave or hay, cows, cars, police officers are on tracks and various other more or less weird stuff happens. With Czech railways one never knows. But mostly it's 20 minutes. I have to start and finish before it ends. When I'm not done, I have another go at it next time.

Having these frequent time windows enables me to keep mental models in my head. It's easier to start and continue where I left off. Like the middle of the previous sentence. But most importantly I can't just say: F*** it and scroll reddit for next 30 minutes. Because mobile internet is not that good and why would I do it?

The most interesting thing about this time boxing stuff is how much I can do. This is my second blog post in 2 months. I'd say it's the same amount of blog posts that I've been able to write in the previous 10 years. I'm too lazy to check the wayback machine if I'm right or not. But it's damn close. And on top of that I've made a little utility which might be interesting for more people than just me. Well, I need to release it. Soon®

So next time you want to make sure you do something, make a calendar event for it. Or do it on your daily commute. But make sure your lazy ass doesn't get in your way. Maybe get an accountability buddy but you need a buddy for that. So maybe move to the Czech Republic where you could commute by train and enjoy the chaos that is Czech Railways. You never know. Maybe you'll have a whole hour of work done on a 20 minute commute.