# 15-minute rule
Spend 15 minutes before you ask question when you're stuck. After 15 minutes, must ask question
People might get confuse of what this 15 minutes is, because most things will take more than 15 minutes. This is when you get stuck.
The best analogy here is, if you're walking and wandering about, you're not stuck. But if you finally come into a wall, and don't see any path, that's when you're stuck. Try to find a door for 15 minutes, if you can't, shout for help.
Context switching helps when you get stuck
# References
I often tell new team members about the 15 min rule (I didn't come up with it): when you're stuck on something (e.g. getting a script to run), you have to try to solve the problem all by yourself for 15 min, but then when the 15 minutes are up you have to ask for help. Failure to do the former wastes people's time, failure to ask for help wastes your time.
There is a similar research hygiene that works well for me: I give myself a time budget, try really hard to go deep on something for a while, but then when the time's up, I force myself to talk about what I'm trying to do with my colleagues and get help.
The "15-minute rule": How and why it accelerates your learning (opens new window)
Take 15 minutes to solve the problem any way you can. If you don’t have an answer after 15 minutes, you must ask someone.