Getting into "the zone"

As you may have noticed, this week’s newsletter is a few hours later than usual and there’s a good reason for that. I lost track of time, kind of.

I didn’t actually lose track of time but I was in a kind of flow where I just couldn’t put down what I was doing to write the newsletter. So I decided to finish my tasks first and the newsletter after.

To some extent, this was the result of somewhat poor planning on my end. I wanted to do too much in the morning while I knew that it was unrealistic to try and do that much in just a few hours.

For a lot of people, “the zone” or ‘flow” is a state of mind where they’re fully focussed on a task. They keep working, and working, chopping away at code for hours on end until their task is done. For me, “the zone” is nothing like that. It usually involves plenty of context switches and breaks for me.

The key part for me is that I’m productive, I’m busy, and I’m not worrying about how long something takes.

It’s just me and my list of things to do.

I don’t even get bummed out when I hit a wall. It usually does involve focussing on one or two related tasks but sometimes I do much more than that. Again, the key for me is that I’m doing a whole bunch of work without paying attention to the clock or distractions that aren’t part of the tasks I want to accomplish in a given period of time.

This morning was like that. I was working on a small project and I planned to spend maybe two hours on it. As it turned out, I was having fun with the project so when the first task was completed, I picked up a second task. Before I knew it, it was time to grab lunch. And after lunch, I was still so into my project that I put a bit more time in. Just so I could finish the task.

That’s the zone for me. It’s working on something because I’m excited to the point where I might shuffle my todo list a bit to accommodate my current flow.

Writing this down made me curious about what your flow is. Are you like me? Or being in “the zone” mean hours of uninterrupted work for you?

Cheers,
Donny

Practical Core Data

Practical Core Data helps you learn Apple's Core Data framework without requiring any prior knowledge. You'll learn how to integrate Core Data in UIKit and SwiftUI applications. The book also covers data modeling, synchronizing your store with a custom backend or CloudKit, profiling and improving performance in a Core Data app, and using Core Data in unit tests.

By the end of the book, you'll know exactly how you can start using Core Data in modern applications.

Practical Combine

Practical Combine is a book that will help you learn Combine from scratch. You will learn about all aspects of Combine in a natural flow where you're eased into functional reactive programming with simple examples, and the difficulty gradually builds up to complicated integrations in later chapters.

🎶 Currently on repeat 🎶

If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I play guitar. I'm a huge music lover and want to share this with you. In this section I will share a new album that I've been enjoying a lot every week.

Polaris - The Mortal Coil I remember seeing this band live a few years ago. They were a support act for Architects. Even though I had heard of this band before, I was not ready for the fantastic performance they gave. What a show. This album from 2017 is full of bangers and it takes me right back to seeing them play. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music

Other content that I really want to share with you

Triple Trouble

I really like the new sidebar style that iPadOS 14 and macOS Big Sur introduced. Learn more about this three-column style layout in this post from Alex. It’s a fantastic overview that shows you how you can start using this style in your apps (as long as they target iPadOS 14 or macOS Big Sur and later).

An article by Alex Grebenyuk

How Apple’s Upcoming Two-Step/Two-Factor Enforcement Could Affect Your fastlane Experience

With Apple’s latest Two-Factor Auth requirements, it’s importent for developers to understand how this will impact their CI solutions. Josh Holtz, core maintainer of Fastlane wrote a post to explain how 2FA might impact your Fastlane integrations. Must-read if you’re using Fastlane!

An article by Josh Holtz