Don't round-robin your projects
Imagine you have a dozen projects open. You've been working through them one by one — project A, then B, then C, all the way to L. You finish a chunk of work on L. Where do you go next?
The instinct is to loop back to A. Round-robin. Start from the top. But this is wrong.
Go to K instead. Then J. Work backwards.
Your memory is freshest in reverse
This is about episodic memory — how you recall sequences of events. When you try to remember what you were doing an hour ago, you don't start from this morning and work forward. You trace backwards from now. The most recent context is the most vivid and the cheapest to reload.
When you return to project K, you were just there. The state of the code, the problem you were solving, the next step — it's all still warm in your head. Project A? That was hours ago. You'll spend the first few minutes just remembering where you left off.
Round-robin maximises the distance between visits to each project. Backtracking minimises it.
This problem is shrinking (for now)
If you're vibe coding with AI, you're probably spending less time on each context switch because the AI handles more of the elapsed work. Longer tasks mean fewer switches per session, which means the round-robin penalty matters less.
But this is temporary. As AI gets faster — generating code in seconds rather than minutes — you'll be switching between projects more frequently again. The round-robin trap will return, and it'll bite harder because the pace will be higher.
Related: colour-code your workspaces
This connects to a broader principle: ambient signals reduce cognitive load.
If every VS Code window looks the same, you have to read the title bar or check the file tree to know where you are. That's a conscious, effortful check. But if each workspace has a distinct colour (I use Peacock for this), you know which project you're in the moment the window appears. It's peripheral, automatic, and nearly free.
Ambient awareness — using colour, position, and visual cues to communicate state without demanding attention — is one of the cheapest UX improvements you can make to a multi-project workflow. It won't stop you from round-robining, but it will shorten the "where am I?" moment when you land.
The takeaway
When you reach the end of your project list, turn around. Don't loop. Your brain already knows the way back.