Do Work When You're Working

When engineers say they’ve been “working all day,” that time often includes distractions, shallow tasks, or unnecessary overhead. To truly be productive, you have to focus on high-leverage, distraction-free work. Here are the core points from the lesson:

• Real productivity comes from deep work—uninterrupted, focused effort on cognitively demanding tasks—not from staying busy or checking email 50+ times a day
• Recognize and minimize "startup costs" like syncing code, building the app, and reviewing changes, so you can spend more time in the value-generating loop of building and debugging
• Block off long stretches of time for deep work rather than relying on scattered 30–45 minute sessions that get consumed by overhead
• Automate or script repetitive setup tasks (e.g. syncing and builds) to reduce friction and start meaningful work faster each day
• Prioritize difficult, ambiguous tasks early—they often influence downstream work, and avoiding them leads to fake progress and missed deadlines