Have you ever tried to walk through your house in the dark, when the power is out and you can’t see anything? Things you normally do without even thinking about it are terrifying and almost impossible! You find yourself feeling along the walls, trying not to knock over things or stub your toe. You can’t find things that you use every day. It makes you extra aware of your surroundings, and you have to really pay attention to your other senses. It also removes many distractions so that you have to focus on the few things you can touch or hear.
So how does this translate to software development? Well, closing your eyes probably won’t help much, unless you’re creating a user interface for the blind. But you can take away some of the things you depend on so much that you take them for granted.
So if you’re learning to touch type, you can cover your hands, or get a keyboard that has blank keys. Or be really crazy and mix up the keys so that looking only messes you up! If you’re learning a new language, you could just do away with the computer and write programs on paper. Or just give up the IDE and use a very simple text editor, like Notepad, that doesn’t even have syntax highlighting. (Don’t use MS Word. Trust me on this one!)
What if you’re reading code? Closing your eyes will make that impossible! But you could try printing it out on paper, then drawing lines and circles and highlighting with different colors to figure out relationships and function groups. This may just become your preferred way to read code!
What’s the point of making it harder to do what I want to do? Similar to our previous exercise of slowing things down, this removes distractions and forces you to use different parts of your brain to approach a problem. It helps you to learn things in a different way. It forms those relationships between brain cells in different and stronger ways. It makes your practice more effective! And that’s what we’re after!
What is a way you could “close your eyes” in your learning exercises today?