Staying out of testing ruts

I'm invoking the pirate heuristic today and stealing from David Christiansen. Dave wrote a great set of tips on how to recognize when you're testing might be in a rut. In the post he identifies the following test-fatigue-symptoms:

  • Randomly pounding the keyboard for data entry.

  • Not taking good notes.

  • Chasing esoteric bugs when you don’t have time.

  • Not bothering to isolate bugs.

  • An inability to think of any error scenarios to test.


Read his post for some tips on how he breaks out of a rut when he recognizes he's in one.

What ruts do you find you fall into? His "asdf" rut resonates with me, I know what one well...