This has become a huge part of my life since having kids. They're wonderful, and they need a lot of attention, which I'm usually happy to give them. But they do often interrupt me, and that makes it hard to get into anything deep or technical while they're around. I cope by waking up very early each morning (5 AM) so I can pursue my own interests for a few hours without the threat of interruption.
Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#32No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#33Journal keeping. For me, the key is letting those thoughts out. It may just be something eating away at me, sometimes it's just a confusing behavior.
Journaling helps you think. It makes you feel like someone is listening (I write those in a way that I am talking to someone, who is just there to listen, and not give feedback). I let everything out, it just feels better, and then I am able to focus more on the work. I am good at patterns, so I identify what makes me tick, what makes me focus, and then it's a matter of doing things which help you and avoid those which don't. Possibly a lot of iteration involved.
P.S. I have tried therapy, but the thing they tried to tell me was that everyone loves me, and people want me and value me in their life. My frustrations were never coming from that unresolved issue. I just felt helpless or nervous about lack of control over my activities, and journaling helped me get to that point, while therapy was useless.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#34I think you got two different things mixed there.
One is being interrupted, the other is being distracted. Being interrupted is external, while being distracted is internal.
So which one is it you're having problems with?
Personally, I have come to accept that there will be interruptions. Colleagues asking for help, someone asking a question, some boss calling an unexpected meeting, my mother phoning or whatever. Some of these you can avoid; like you could have a rule to always communicate meetings in advance. But at least a part of these will be unavoidable. How many depends on particular circumstances; e.g. being a senior engineer in a mostly junior group means you were specifically hired to be interrupted to a considerable extent.
One thing that sometimes helps me with interruptions is using 5-10 seconds. That is, when someone comes I just ask for 10 seconds, I make a gesture or simply say "10 seconds" or whatever, and then proceed to sort of "unload". I write down the precise point I am at and the exact upcoming action I was going to take.
On the matter of distractions, it depends a lot more on yourself and the success of anything you try will be very dependent on how you are.
In this front, one thing I do is scheduling. I want/need to do X... but I have to do Y now. So, I slot it into an appropriate time. e.g. "This weekend I want to make progress on that personal project". So "this weekend". This means: a. not now, and b. I have sort of secured a time for it, I don't have to worry about it because it has an assigned place.
Again, in this area what works for others may not work for you. But also, as someone has already mentioned, if you can't manage to learn how to do this on your own, reaching out to a therapist or other professional help is a valid solution. They may provide more specific tools and techniques.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#35Hardly any projects can be finished in a single sitting. You should have a plan and focus on individual tasks, then you'll always have something to finish and be happy about.
I find it really annoying to be interrupted at work, and remote work has enabled me to regain my focus.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#36I work remotely, so I just live my life and hang around online during business hours (and sometimes nap) and then use the late evening hours to churn out work. I do not like the split between work and life at all. Better to weave it all together as I see fit. 3 days of work can easily be 3 hours if I get those 3 hours uninterrupted rather than every hour punctuated by meetings or some other dev or even just needing t…
Sounds familiar. I often do the 'real work' in the late evening hours, when the world is quiet. So, you allow work to happen in your free time - are there limitations what types of personal activities you allow yourself in your normal work time (the time where you have to be reachable). I'm just curious because erasing the split between work and life is often in favor of work.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#37Therapy. 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…
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 criticize, nor give a “dad lecture”. They ask, listen, note key points, rephrase and ask if they got it right. Then they ask you a question about the above, which is both perplexing and obvious at the same time. This is the moment when you realize there is a effing wrong pattern in your mind that you weren’t even aware of. Then, often the resolve is just a matter of understanding the issue and being aware of it for a week/month or so. If that doesn’t help, e.g. you now see the issue daily, but can’t help but feel emotion pressure, they give you an algorithmic method or a medication.
They always go from your issue you came in with down to basic mind patterns and emotions, small step by small step, with your affirmation, and do not jump into conjectures straight away, which you can’t even evaluate logically and emotionally.
They clearly explain their methods, if you ask them, or by themselves. It’s not a black magic neither a brain surgery, therapy is a thing you may do yourself, but sometimes you need a mind different than yours to mirror your findings.
There are 10+ charlatans per one therapist.
I would appreciate if someone with a similar experience added/fixed my list, or taught me of why sometimes they behave differently and that still ought to work.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#38I try to focus on the reason, write it down, test it for a while, if knowing it is effective I add it to a list. After a few months, you will have like 20 reasons that summarizes why you get stuck in this period in your life.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#39I organize my day around my work - where work means professional and personal objectives. I list them, I prioritize them, and then I ensure I cut time out to at least tackle something. I put myself in the best environment (for me) to complete the task at hand. For example - I have important (personal) conversations away from my workspace and computers, I work only in my 'working space'.
When I focus on an objective, I ensure my phone cannot be found. I turn off slack and the like - and I generally make it impossible to distract myself. I fight myself as much as I can, to live in the moment.
As for my works: I have permanently disabled notifications on my desktop. I read e-mail during specific windows, and the same with slack and the like. In office, with people is more difficult. But I generally work on getting teams to agree to 'zone time', ensuring that it's not my idea, but our shared goal.
Re: Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?
#40This has become a huge part of my life since having kids. They're wonderful, and they need a lot of attention, which I'm usually happy to give them. But they do often interrupt me, and that makes it hard to get into anything deep or technical while they're around. I cope by waking up very early each morning (5 AM) so I can pursue my own interests for a few hours without the threat of interruption.
Same. Those hours between 4:30 - 8:00AM are magic. The rest of the day is lost, even without kids. Errands, messages, meetings ...