Not Until You re Ready

Not Until You're Ready

He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

James Thurber, The Glass in the Field

Great performers share a trait: they know when to start and when to wait. The diver stands on the high-board, waiting for the perfect moment to jump. The conductor stands before the orchestra, arms raised, until she senses that the moment is right to start the piece.

You are a great performer. You too need to listen to the voice that whispers "wait." If you sit down to start typing and there's some nagging doubt in your mind, heed it.

Tip 56

Listen to Nagging Doubts Start When You're Ready

There used to be a style of tennis coaching called "inner tennis." You'd spend hours hitting balls over the net, not particularly trying for accuracy, but instead verbalizing just where the ball hit relative to some target (often a chair ). The idea was that the feedback would train your subconscious and reflexes, so that you improved without consciously knowing how or why.

As a developer, you've been doing the same kind of thing during your entire career. You've been trying things and seeing which worked and which didn't. You've been accumulating experience and wisdom. When you feel a nagging doubt, or experience some reluctance when faced with a task, heed it. You may not be able to put your finger on exactly what's wrong, but give it time and your doubts will probably crystallize into something more solid, something you can address. Software development is still not a science. Let your instincts contribute to your performance.

Good Judgment or Procrastination?

Everyone fears the blank sheet of paper. Starting a new project (or even a new module in an existing project) can be an unnerving experience. Many of us would prefer to put off making the initial commitment of starting. So how can you tell when you're simply procrastinating, rather than responsibly waiting for all the pieces to fall into place?

A technique that has worked for us in these circumstances is to start prototyping. Choose an area that you feel will be difficult and begin producing some kind of proof of concept. One of two things will typically happen. Shortly after starting, you may feel that you're wasting your time. This boredom is probably a good indication that your initial reluctance was just a desire to put off the commitment to start. Give up on the prototype, and hack into the real development.

On the other hand, as the prototype progresses you may have one of those moments of revelation when you suddenly realize that some basic premise was wrong. Not only that, but you'll see clearly how you can put it right. You'll feel comfortable abandoning the prototype and launching into the project proper. Your instincts were right, and you've just saved yourself and your team a considerable amount of wasted effort.

When you make the decision to prototype as a way of investigating your unease, be sure to remember why you're doing it. The last thing you want is to find yourself several weeks into serious development before remembering that you started out writing a prototype.

Somewhat cynically, starting work on a prototype might also be more politically acceptable than simply announcing that "I don't feel right about starting" and firing up solitaire.

Challenges

• Discuss the fear-of-starting syndrome with your colleagues. Do others experience the same thing? Do they heed it? What tricks do they use to overcome it? Can a group help overcome an individual's reluctance, or is that just peer pressure?