Sometimes You Need to Stop Coding and Pet the Cat

Software engineers love optimization.

We optimize algorithms.

We optimize databases.

We optimize memory usage, network latency and build pipelines.

We measure execution time in milliseconds and celebrate when something becomes just a little bit faster.

Sometimes we even try to optimize ourselves.

More productivity.

Better focus.

Fewer distractions.

Longer periods of uninterrupted work.

It all sounds perfectly reasonable.

Until a cat jumps onto your lap.

An Unexpected Interrupt

Exactly one year ago, he appeared in our garden.

He was skinny.

Hungry.

Very loud.

Like many stray cats, he had learned that humans could be unpredictable. Some offered food. Others chased him away.

He had no reason to trust us.

To be honest, we had no reason to trust him either.

Would he stay?

Would he disappear the next day?

Would he ever feel safe enough to come inside?

Neither of us knew the answers.

So we started with something very simple.

A little food.

A little patience.

A little distance.

No expectations.

Just small interactions repeated over time.

One Year Later

Today the situation looks completely different.

While I was writing another article, he quietly walked into the room, jumped onto my lap and made a decision that required no thinking at all.

This is a safe place.

For the next several minutes, I stopped writing.

The keyboard was no longer accessible.

The article had to wait.

And surprisingly...

that wasn't a productivity problem.

It was probably the most productive pause of the day.

Schedulers Don't Understand Cats

Operating systems are excellent at scheduling tasks.

They know how to prioritize processes.

They balance workloads across CPU cores.

They maximize throughput.

If something blocks execution, another task gets scheduled.

A computer would probably classify a cat on the keyboard as an unexpected hardware failure.

while (working)
{
    if (cat.onLap())
    {
        pet(cat);

        // Unexpected side effect:
        // Better ideas.

        continue;
    }

    writeCode();
}

No compiler would approve this optimization.

Humans probably should.

The Best Ideas Rarely Arrive on Schedule

Looking back, many of my favorite ideas didn't appear while I was trying hardest to think.

They appeared while mowing the lawn.

Walking through the garden.

Watching the vineyard.

Or simply sitting still because a cat had decided that moving was no longer an option.

Our brains are remarkably different from CPUs.

Continuous utilization doesn't necessarily produce continuous creativity.

Sometimes the opposite is true.

A short interruption gives different parts of the brain enough space to connect ideas that previously seemed unrelated.

Nothing visible happens.

Yet something important does.

Trust Takes Time

The interesting part is that this story isn't really about productivity.

It's about trust.

A year ago, neither the cat nor I had enough information to make confident decisions.

Today there is no decision left to make.

Trust wasn't created by a single event.

It emerged from hundreds of ordinary moments that were individually insignificant but collectively transformative.

Perhaps the same principle explains why reputation matters so much on today's Internet.

Search engines.

Email providers.

Banks.

Fraud detection systems.

People.

Animals.

All of them keep asking the same question.

Can I trust you?

The answer is almost never determined by one spectacular moment.

It is built quietly, one small interaction at a time.

Final Thought

As engineers, researchers and builders, we naturally look for better algorithms.

Sometimes, however, the best optimization isn't another line of code.

Sometimes it's accepting a short interruption.

Taking a deep breath.

Looking away from the monitor.

And, if you're lucky enough to have one nearby...

...stopping for a moment to pet the cat.

READY.