My natural tendency as a software engineer is to leave everything tidy at the end of the day (i.e., find a "good stopping point"). That meant no clear loose ends on what I'd been working on. But I often had trouble getting started the next day for reasons quite related to the article. Many years into my career, I figured out to leave a simple issue that I had already thought through the solution to, and leave myself a note that pointed me in the right direction the next day. Getting that initial success the next day was often enough to get me going again.
I intentionally don't do this. I leave a line of code half done, a sentence half finished in a doc, etc. The idea is that when I sit down the next day I can sit down and accomplish one thing the moment I sit down. It's shockingly effective at getting me back into flow the next morning.
Does "this" refer to reading the entire post you're responding to? Everything after the first sentence in that post described what you're talking about.
I saw this technique described as "parking [with your car] facing downhill" on HN sometime in the past year. I haven't had much of a chance to implement it, but always good to hear more support for the concept.
"leave everything tidy at the end of the day" - totally agree, I've now shifted to my "tidy" means my todo-list is tidy with the first thing to do at the top.
i mean even if you leave every day with a clean slate then your mind will still worry about all sorts of details to be taken care of soon or posing potential threats. maybe your approach also normalizes this status quo and allows your mind to be at ease - yes, there is this one task and i'll take care of it tomorrow. because if you'd have done already then your mind would not just pick some other issue, but you would also prime your affect to expect a clean slate which is unachievable for any in progress software project.
