Blocking long chunks of time is extremely important for builders. I often block slots on my calendar for just this reason. Defend your time!

Omg, this so much. I tried to explain to family and friends how even making appointments for something is stressing me out but it usually sounds oversensitive (as also mentioned in the blog post). I tend to lose track of time quite often. It's a good thing (I am in a flow) but also a bad thing ("suddenly" I am late for something).

I try to workaround this by asking if I can join spontaneously ("don't wait for me"), if we can schedule a range of time instead of a fixed time like 8pm or straight up saying no with no explanation.

The bigger your chunks are the more you'll get done. A 1-2 hour chunk is not enough time to load and "sort" a new, sophisticated task with many pieces into working memory. If you've "sorted" the task before and stored it to "disk", sometimes you can load it in ~30m IME, but that still doesn't leave you much time to work on it.

Schedule an 8 hour chunk and expect 4-6 hours of solid work to get done on average IMO. Depending on the problem and how prepared you are for it, sometimes you'll go far longer than 6 hours not wanting to have to save and restore the task again.

I am sharing it because it really helped me figure out how to manage work time/chunks/sessions https://youtu.be/jozNEpY8iik?si=gHcyaMPM4fjgI9wd

This. You need a privalage of focus! As a Scrum Master I encourage this with my teams!

time-boxing always works (big or small)

IMO blocking non-interrupted time is one of the most important parts of software engineering productivity.

By non-interrupted I mean by others, yourself, or social media.

Building software requires you to create, hold, navigate, and re-org growing mental models in your mind. Context switching of any kind requires you to dump those mental models from your brain in order to focus on the new context.

Re-constructing the mental models takes time and you are not guaranteed to pick up the same pathway you were previously on.

Yes, big blocks help, even if you take small breaks or if you have small tasks and have to switch, that time is yours to focus. I don't follow a strick plan now, but I used to do 3h blocks and pause between them.

It's the manager's job to refine the scope and depth of the maker's tasks so it can be completed easily in small chunks.

A maker who argues for longer blocks of time is encouraging their manager and themselves to be lazy.

Rather, a maker should argue for smaller tasks and demand more effort from their managers.