helps for complexity in large tasks. Not really with small tasks (since you spend more time making and reading notes than doing the work). Programming is an example where notes can't save me, I just need to hyperfocus or I won't get anything done.

[–] embed_me@programming.dev 2 points 6 hours ago

I also program. Most of my lost time is due to repeated mental calculations of the cost of each approach in execution vs maintainability.

If left unchecked, I will do nothing and keep thinking. I've found that writing it down and trying any option without giving much weight to my intuition, helps a lot. Sure, I may need to rewrite some parts again, but it's faster for me to do that instead of optimising the first attempt. Plus by the second time, I'll have a better idea of the thing. I try to apply this not only to feature development but also debugging. I work close to hardware too so debugging is quite complex.