TL:DR, I have not worked on my computer steady for more than a half hour at a time. I lack the attention span. Last night I went about 6 hours non-stop building an app with my AI partner. I am now very excited to build programs with these tools I have. Before last night, I procrastinated, spent more time planning than doing. Now, I am about to have another go at it!
That’s the whole gist of it. No need to read on.
I spent my whole night last night working on a plugin for WordPress, the platform that powers my websites. Plugins are these little add-ons that give your site new functionality. So the project was useful, and might earn me some money down the road. I have been meaning to get started on it for like six months but dreaded how boring I was sure it was going to be.
Last night, getting into a zone, working on coding for more than 5 minutes, it was truly a unique experience. What I expected to be soul-sucking tedium ended up being a high energy and thoroughly enjoyable time. I am blown away by how productive I became when the little victories of our progress started rolling in.
I don’t yet know how to code, so I work with AI. I tell it its role, our objectives, give it guidelines, and teach it what a desirable result for our efforts looks like. I have to review and test the results of its code with each new output, and give it clear instructions on how to correct any errors. I am teaching it what humans need and it is trying to meet those requirements. The AI last night was really very good at it.
I work with one of the best AIs out there. It can handle working with the most information at one time of any of the AIs today. This means, with every request, I was able to feed it our entire project at once and it still had mental space to think about how to proceed. Not only did I give it all the files of our project every time I tasked it with something, but I also gave it multiple documents of guidelines and rules on how to code in a professional way. It never complained, and tried to do even more.
I would load up all the files, then craft a well-structured request or instruction. Then it would output information and code for its turn, which I would review and then decide on what our next step was based on the results. Then back to loading up all the files again for the next instruction.
We made so much progress with each turn that I never thought we’d be able to make following my slower and safer methods. I felt little hits of pride and growing excitement every time we successfully added a new feature to our plugin. I really began to enjoy what I would have thought would be a draining effort. I got into a flow state, where I became like a machine following our iterative process over and over and moving forward with each turn, almost effortlessly.
A flow state, or being “in the zone,” is a mental state of complete absorption and energized focus in an activity, characterized by deep immersion, effortless action, loss of self-consciousness, and altered time perception, occurring when a person’s skill level perfectly matches the challenge of a task, leading to peak performance and enjoyment. It’s a state where action and awareness merge, distractions disappear, and the activity becomes intrinsically rewarding, fostering creativity, productivity, and well-being.
The night blew past in the blink of an eye, it seemed like, and I had gained a momentum. The work was coming on its own, in a rhythm, to a beat. I was moving by every gain, every step toward our finish line. The goal is too lofty to have finished it all last night, but this morning I wanted to just forego sleep and keep going!
I am about to start again. I waited until later in the night, made sure I got some me time first. I can feel this anticipation of the little wins with every loading of the files and writing my request. The pay off for the little bit of ritualised work was enormous compared to what it cost me- 15 clicks of a mouse and about a hundred words of instructions to move measurably towards my personally rewarding goal.
I’m rambling while I think about the work ahead. Incoherent, just getting ramped up for the ritual and the reward. Damn. I gotta go and start this ball rolling tonight again! Talk soon. Thanks for listening, if you made it this far.