11–20 of 105 posts
I will sometimes, depending on the level of concentration, close all communication apps, phone on silent and lock doors.
for diffcult work with other people, that gets complex, I'll keep meetings to one or two attendees.
I also do a brain dump and write down in notepad, my problems and to do stuff, then prioritise the list
I just keep the 'busy' hours for other people. Thankfully WFH has made it easy. Basically 11AM-7PM are for other people to interrupt me, and for calls. I stay only half-engaged with chats and emails so it doesn't cost in me my cognitive budget and I get a lot of stuff done within the household. Either 7AM-11AM or 7PM-11PM, depending on circumstances, I do work. You know, the 15 minutes of real actual work mentioned i…
Obviously I would like to be left alone while working, but I have handicapped and mentally ill people to care for my life is acutely interrupt-driven. My work is immensely enjoyable so I can recover pretty fast most of the time.
In the days I did work in an office, I found that I got an enormous amount of work done on evenings, weekends, or very early mornings. This required having a spouse who understood that work was important because it supported both of us.
More generally, if distractions are bothering you or are making you nervous, I would recommend meditation. Meditation is the practice of focussing on the present. Try the waking up app (https://wakingup.com/), it is a good reason-based introduction to the practice and theory of meditation.
Plan the work and environment very well to avoid interruptions. Still if it comes, welcome the interruption, postpone addressing it if you can, address it if can't be missed. But most important thing is to don't react to it happening, so you can switch back to your tasks again with same rigor.
It's very situation-dependent, so here are a few things I've done: 1. In a work situation where I'm relatively senior, I've proactively communicated that I like minimally-interrupting notifications (email>slack>IRL). Even when someone taps me on the shoulder, they're a little sheepish about it, and I can request 30 seconds to jot down a note about where I left off. I also just feel more in control of the situation. 2…
I am not a fan of IM communication, if it’s required that I respond immediately, all the time. Most IM methods, these days, have a “go away and leave me alone” feature, but it has been my experience that many folks resent it, if you actually have the nerve to use them.
I use Slack in “bursts,” for technical communication. I’ll ignore it for hours, or even days (if I’m in The Zone on a tough issue), then have a half hour or so of intense communication.
I mostly prefer email.
It's very situation-dependent, so here are a few things I've done: 1. In a work situation where I'm relatively senior, I've proactively communicated that I like minimally-interrupting notifications (email>slack>IRL). Even when someone taps me on the shoulder, they're a little sheepish about it, and I can request 30 seconds to jot down a note about where I left off. I also just feel more in control of the situation. 2…
Of course, as the opposite situation would be absolutely completely insane...
Talking specifically about code, TDD really helped me, seriously, the red-green loop makes me comfortable to stop any time the tests are green, then I commit, which means that I also have very small commits which also help me with the interruptions once I'm back.
To not miss what I was thinking ahead, I always to keep a todo list (I just use Notes) of everything that comes to mind that I still need to fix or code which I postponed from the current commit, so I don't loose track while at the same time it frees me to focus on a specific thing at a time.
Now sometimes this does not apply, sometimes you just need long, deep and uninterrupted focus, like thinking about the perfect abstraction for something, or those long debugging sessions I mentioned. For those, I try to be sure to block some time or I don't even start it on that day