But with AI making parallel work easier (in theory), is single-task focus now a disadvantage? Are effective engineers always running several threads at once, or is deep focus still the best way to get things done?
Have a list of things you do, go one by one over them. If new task appears add at the loop "gap".
I found that the worst thing is chasing the bunny: Oh wow. This finished. I should chboing oh another agent that's probablboing... - completely unsustainable.
The loop is very similar to old way of things. You just don't pay attention to notifications. Also it's worth grouping loop to minimal że context switching or ease context switching (e.g. task on project a, task on project a+b, task on project b, task on project a+b, etc.)
In order to get to looping part I use self-approval modes for agents. It's slightly uncomfortable but I built own agents with own permission reviewers and they are quite good. These can be used to run agents in the background. And if you do a loop and find agent still spinning - it's a good moment to take a five for yourself.
The deep focus is still there but somewhere else. Usually in coordination and integration.
I feel like commanding a fleet of AI agents forces you into that kind of role. They get things done, but if you're not constantly checking up on them, the work isn't what it needs to be. Worse, it can turn out to be a big pile of tech debt.
I don't know what the answer is yet, it's both hard to keep up and work on my own terms. It's partly my own fault, I have a stack of PRs to review, merge and UAT. That's the deepwork stream now, but it's so tempting to just kick off another agent and have it flesh out something else from the backlog.