Challenging the Supremacy of Flow State

I’ve long thought that the ability to maintain flow state for hours was the hallmark of a good programmer. I prided myself on being in such a deep state of flow that I would often fail to notice the passing of hours, the setting sun. I would often only reluctantly step away to pee. I would work late into the night, uninterrupted by the world.

As the systems I’ve worked on have become more complex, technologically diverse, and frankly riddled with errors, I’ve realized that what I thought of as “flow” is actually just a state of chasing my own thoughts, trying to immediately fix whatever annoyances or weirdnesses I encounterd, and finishing my days not having completed my initial goals for the day.