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Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
#12A lot of offices have a culture where headphones-on means "do not disturb" or "slack to see if it's ok before disturbing". You don't even have to play music if you don't want to - just put a pair of cheap headphones on your head.
This is my advice too - I usually don't play music in my headphones, but then I can ignore people when they're talking to me for the first couple of seconds, and then i can look up and they have to start over. It's mean, but effective.
Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
#13To piggyback on what others have said, if you're in a certain type of company then interrupting you to talk is an important social status symbol. It's an implicit (and sometimes explicit) signal that their status is greater than yours, and your submission to them is more important than the value you create for the company. If this is the case, I'd highly recommend finding a place that values your productivity.
Isn't ignoring someone who wants your help showing that your status is greater than theirs?
Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
#14A lot of my colleagues dont use headphones, so it is kinda hard to send the message headphones == do not disturb. From the other side, I work in Germany, so I just need to say "Sorry, I am busy!" and continue to do my work. It works great, and I don't even feel bad about being rude or misinterpreted (which was something that used to stay in the back of my head after not helping a peer.)
Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
#15Here‘s what I do: "Sorry I'm in the middle of something, can I get back to you later?"
Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid people distracting you at work?
#16If headphones don't do the trick, and you want to stop people before they actually bother you, have you tried just putting a sign on your desk or the back of your chair that says not to bother you?