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Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#51

Post by tibbetts »

artemonster wrote: post #45
wruza wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year of therapy weekly here. That’s just BAD therapist, whom you can leave right away without a privilege of explanation. It’s hard to find a good one, but when you find em, your mind will “shit bricks”. My (experience-based) way to detect a good one: They can prescribe. That means they are a real doctor and not a “great courses plus grad”. If they work with drug addicts, good. They only ask, never theorize, nor cr…

I kid you not I got an explanation about feeling sad and depressed around birthday once: "when we are born we are separated from our mothers and that event deeply traumatizes us for life". Really? an underdeveloped brain of a baby is already traumatized at birth? Maybe you're right, maybe I just have to switch.

100% drop your therapist. That’s why you pay them: to make clear this is a professional relationship, and it’s your prerogative to change it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#52

Post by cletus »

Have you tried time boxing? Reading what you said, it may work for you.

The principle is simple: instead of trying to tell yourself "I'm going to focus on X until it's done", instead say "I'm going to work on X for Y minutes". You can experiment with what Y works for you. 20-30 minutes is a reasonable starting point.

During that time, remove potential distractions. No notifications, phone on silent, no distracting websites open (eg HN, reddit, whatever), no Discord, etc. Use a timer if that helps. I'd actually get a physical timer as this seems to be more tangible and removes the temptation of getting distracted by your phone.

After that time, give yourself 5 minutes to do whatever. HN, reddit, email, Twitter, it doesn't matter.

There's really no point in self-flagellation when it comes to distraction. Just try and work with it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#53

Post by mooreds »

When I am interrupted, I almost always ask "Hey, can I talk to you in 5 min?" Unless it is an emergency, the answer is "yes".

Then I spend those 5 minute capturing context. This makes it easier (not easy, but easier) to return to the task after the discussion.

Another good thing to do is limit chances to be interrupted. Sign out of slack, close your email. Check these once every few hours. Oftentimes someone will ping you then solve their own issue with further research.

The above answer the headline question, but the deeper one comes in your text. "How can I live in the present" is how I interpret that. I don't know how to answer that, but focusing on the shortness of time you have on this planet has helped me be more present.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#54

Post by [deleted] »

artemonster wrote: post #23
adontz wrote: post #16

Therapy. For real. In some cultures it's not welcome, but it affects personal development enormously. It's the best investment in your life. Not that you'll solve all your problems, however you'll learn to analyze your problems and learn to find root causes to fight with, instead of symptoms. Being here and now is not easy. You may be anxious, tired, may have some mild disorders, obsessions you don't even know about.

Therapy is not a silver bullet. While it can be helpful, I found it incredibly awful and frustrating when therapist tries to describe and justify things that are happening to you by trying to tie something from your past. You can always do that with any person and any circumstance. Client: „I am annoyed by the interuruptions“ Therapist: „Maybe you dont like loosing control because your mother havent given you a titty…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#55

Post by sebow »

I used to think about it and then i realized it's useless to reflect upon that fact.It's just waste of time.Meditation helps if you interrupted something massively and you were set back(which is more rare), but on small things i don't contemplate on them.Working out, running, physical exercises help in this regard a lot, because with them you train your psyche to stay on the goal, and then you can apply this to whatever you're working on or doing.

As primers, pomodoro helps(especially when you're 'too much' in the zone and you lose sense of time), and there are a lot other ways.I would also say WHM(Wim Hof Method) helps to relax you if you get anxious/nervous about being interrupted, but WHM helps in general so yea, you can do it when waking up/going to bed.Taking notes helps(especially if you never did it or don't have a habit).In general there's no universal solution, it's all about knowing yourself.

Usually the main problem about being interrupted is that you're not aiming very precisely towards your goal.Once you have that goal in your crosshair and you want it, everything becomes irrelevant.But most importantly realize that there's no growth without pain, and i'm not saying to should hurt yourself.I'm saying whenever there's hardship in whatever you do, the best way for growth is to conquer that pain and even use it as experience for updating your goal.As smaller advice, do the obvious:cut everything related to social media, or internet in general(unless it's a requirement).

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#56

Post by xchaotic »

When we had little kids and working in noisy open office spaces was normal I figured it’s best not to fight it and went for work that is more suited to being disrupted often. I still spend a small portion of my day coding but if the expectation is not huge, it’s not hard to find 30 minutes of focus time. I’d really struggle if I had to produce a days worth of code everyday as I simply don’t have enough uninterrupted hours every day.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#57

Post by JensRantil »

barefeg wrote: post #7

I would write the things that are in my mind which are blocking me from doing something else (like sleeping). When working on personal projects I try to plan all the steps I need to make and split them into very small tasks. Then if I’m interrupted during one task I can quickly come back by reading the description. If there’s something blocking my progress in a task, I write comments below the task’s card (using what…

I do this, too, but I tend to write a comment in the code where I'm at with what the next step is. Works great.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#58

Post by Icathian »

artemonster wrote: post #45
wruza wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year of therapy weekly here. That’s just BAD therapist, whom you can leave right away without a privilege of explanation. It’s hard to find a good one, but when you find em, your mind will “shit bricks”. My (experience-based) way to detect a good one: They can prescribe. That means they are a real doctor and not a “great courses plus grad”. If they work with drug addicts, good. They only ask, never theorize, nor cr…

I kid you not I got an explanation about feeling sad and depressed around birthday once: "when we are born we are separated from our mothers and that event deeply traumatizes us for life". Really? an underdeveloped brain of a baby is already traumatized at birth? Maybe you're right, maybe I just have to switch.

I've had some really bad ones too. They definitely exist, but there are some good ones too. If you're still seeing that person I'd definitely recommend shopping around.

Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

#59

Post by andi999 »

adontz wrote: post #16

Therapy. For real. In some cultures it's not welcome, but it affects personal development enormously. It's the best investment in your life. Not that you'll solve all your problems, however you'll learn to analyze your problems and learn to find root causes to fight with, instead of symptoms. Being here and now is not easy. You may be anxious, tired, may have some mild disorders, obsessions you don't even know about.

What type of therapy are you suggesting? Any type?
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