How to avoid flow zone — a false sense of hyper-productivity

Flow zone is that state of mind in which a programmer is highly focused on solving a particular problem. His brain is fully concentrated on the problem and he is disconnected from the rest of the world. When he gets out of the zone, he gets the feeling of getting things done. He gets an immense feeling of being productive and wants to get into the flow zone often.

Being concentrated and solving a problem is the best thing that programmers should do. But what is wrong with it? According to Uncle Bob, the flow zone is a trap. It is a trap that can diminish the big picture of the problem you are trying to solve. Let me make that simple for you.

Do you remember the last hobby project you made and you stopped working on it after a few days or months? Your hobby project was a cool idea to build a trading website and you spent hours choosing a good font for your website instead of writing an algorithm. You checked one font, the recommendation system suggested similar other, you kept on trying one and another. You entered the zone. After an hour you realized no real work is done.

Another example of getting into the zone is that. You were asked to write a module of software and in the middle, you did not know how to handle one strange exception. You started surfing the internet and did not find…