Part of XP is breaking work down into the smallest possible pieces. Kent Beck teaches us to teeny tiny changes, changes so small that you don’t mind starting over when you get things wrong. Llewellyn Falco breaks work down into bits so tiny that most of them provable refactorings, minute changes like putting “if (true){}” around some code; adding an empty else statement; or calling a function that does nothing.
When changing a complex system, it helps to make each change as simple as possible.
When our limitation is cognitive load, the difficulty of the task is not the sum of the difficulty of the steps. It is the maximum difficulty of any one step.
At home, when I get stressed out, when the kids are talking to me and I’m trying to get ready to go and the kitchen needs clean and what is sticky thing I just stepped on — I catch myself, and start breaking down my work into the smallest steps possible. One tiny thing at a time.
Put down what I’m holding. Listen to the child. Ask the child to wait. Fetch a washcloth. Get it wet. Wipe the sticky floor. Put the washcloth in the bin. Put one mug in the dishwasher, and call the kitchen “cleaner.” One at a time, put away the things I was holding. Walk past the closet where my coat is, put on my shoes. Now get the coat. Put it on. Now get a hat. Put it on. Now get car keys. Now put the keys down. Put on gloves. Pick up the car keys. Ask the child to repeat the question.
This might take more clock time than if I try to answer the child and put away the stuff I’m holding and pick up the stuff I need while optimizing the route to avoid doubling back in the hallway. Maybe.
The tiny steps lower my cognitive load. This leaves me enough attention to hear the child’s question. It lets me handle the hardest single step (leaving the rest of the kitchen alone) without bitching.
Even easy things get hard when we lump them together. Add stress, and cognitive load is exceeded, leading to more stress, leading to things getting harder. Soon I’m yelling at the children, dropping a mug, and leaving without a hat.
Our limitation is not what we can do. It’s how much we can hold in our heads. So don’t push it!
In programming, it’s dangerous to work near your working memory threshold. You get more mistakes and more complicated code. In life, it’s stressful to optimize for fewer steps or fewer seconds on the clock. Do that when you’re bored; keep yourself entertained by straining your working memory. Only at home, please, not at work.