The conference was kicked off with a great keynote speech by Neal Ford. The presentation was “Productive Programmer: On the Lam from the Furniture Police” and was a subject near and dear to many developers who have ever worked in a cube farm, and wanted to squeeze more productivity out of your day. As “knowledge workers” we’re all expected to have enough focus to write useful code to get our projects to completion.

To that end, Neal’s talk moved through the topic’s range and discussed brain theory, the zone, and creating a healthy workspace.

A good portion of the talk was dedicated to the difference between the right brain and the left brain, and how both are useful in the task of software engineering. While most programmers have a fairly clear idea on how to get their left brain engaged in a task, the right brain, the creative brain, is somewhat of a mystery to most. I’ve done lots of work studying the mind and concur with the strategies laid out in Neal’s talk. The aim in the first section was getting out of the right brain, those insights that hit us when we’re focused on something else.

The following were discussed as good methods of distraction to receive your “A Ha!” moment, note they are repetitive tasks:

• Mowing the lawn
• Playing a puzzle-based game video/real
• Cooking
• Pair Programming - the driver is engaging in left brain activity, the navigator is engaging in right brain activity

The other issue with the right brain, is thoughts are fleeting, and you need some way to keep them from running off. Here’s where a “Trusted System” to use a GTD term comes into play. Whatever this is, the key is to use it, get it out of your brain, and engage with the data later. Examples of “Trusted Systems” include: Moleskin notebook, PIM, (insert anything that captures your thoughts here).

Another area touched on which inhabits purely right brain activity was the idea of a Mind Map. Tony Buzan created this concept which basically consists of a brainstorm-like diagram with color, drawing, and linkage with single descriptive words. It simply maps the way a memory is already created in the mind. XMind or MindManager are popular tools to lay these out on a computer.

The final major area touched on was the idea of “Flow”. Getting into “The Zone”. Too often in our daily activity, the constant notifications and other applications vying for our attention distract us and pull us out of flow. A couple of applications discussed during the talk to help dim out any distractions:

• doodim for mac
• jedi concentrate for windows

Other suggestions talked about for keeping in the zone: automating repetitive tasks, kill environmental distractions, good chair, minimum of 2 monitors, and a VERY fast desktop. Neal put on a great keynote presentation, and I felt it was a great kickoff for this years symposium.

Be sure to check out our talk on Apache Wicket on Friday at 3pm in Breakout Room 1 - If you liked 5 Days of Wicket, you’ll love this in-depth hour and drop us a line if your company needs training in wicket: trainings@mysticcoders.com