> Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus.
I'm always confused by people who struggle so much with being able to quickly answer a question and get back to what they were doing.
Also, here you're prioritising your work over someone else's.
> I simply can't stand incessantly being asked questions, I view it as a type of interruption
Well, you are being interrupted. But you're being paid to be interrupted.
> 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.
This is what I do, as well.
Interruptions used to frustrate me to no end. I found it very rude to be interrupted, especially when I was so obviously busy with my very important things.
Now I have 3 children under 3 years of age. Interruptions are the name of this game. And I've come to realize that the work or whatever really isn't that damned important, either.
So, as long as there isn't an emergency, I acknowledge the person/people doing the interrupting and then take notes in a pocket notebook.
> you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus
Surely there must be ways to balance these things?
When you want to ask someone a question it shouldn’t be too hard to infer whether it’s a good time to do that now or you should wait (if it is, well it’s exactly a very hard skill to learn if you put in some effort)
> I sometimes learn something new by answering a question from someone who is looking at things from a different direction than I am, or discussing something I don't have a quick answer to
This can happen on Slack or whatever too, but with much less friction. I'm not ignoring teammates for days - I just want to be able to take 10 minutes or whatever to reach a reasonable place to context-switch versus being forced to do so right now.
> I can hop back into "the flow" pretty much immediately.
I envy you, but I very much cannot do this. If I'm working on something of sufficient complexity, I'm going to lose at least 15 minutes every time I'm forced to make a substantive context-switch. It's a huge drain for me.
>> The people actually doing the work don’t have time to talk about it and the people spending all their time talking about it aren’t doing the work.
I can't really agree with this. I think it's worth noting that writing about something you have just learned is a really good way to solidify that knowledge, especially if you are able to get feedback from others. So a lot of people deliberately set aside the time to do it, even if it comes at the expense of greater levels of productivity.
> even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack.
Interesting, I feel the opposite. The longer it takes me to respond to someone’s messages, the more real work I am actually getting done because I’m deeply focused. The days where I quickly reply to everyone are usually the most unproductive.
> i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing
This is so sad and frustrating. I get distracted easily too, but when someone is taking time to show and explain something to me, they have my full attention. Anything less is so disrespectful and just a waste of time.
> you embrace it, escalate or forward it to the correct people, and then go back to what else you have to do.
How would you maintain this habit in a world where:
1) Time is limited.
2) Context-switching has a high time cost (see “manager time vs maker time”).
3) Communication takes effort. Describing issues conherently takes at least 15 minutes of focused time.
4) “Noticing an issue” is an event which happens at least 4x per hour? This includes seeing an alert come in via your error-reporting infra and determining if it is or is not spurious.
Your attention would be jerked this way and that. If you are in the process of reporting one issue and see another issue, do you report that first or second? How do you find time to defrag your working memory and to focus on your original task for the day?
We live in a tremendously noisy world.
Without a commitment to focus for 2 hours and ignore things other than your current task, How do you accomplish anything?
I like to say I'm discovery-oriented rather than goal-oriented. Being so means I also seek to avoid being overworked because I don't know how to not prioritize discovery. I've tried joining work with pleasure but I find it doesn't lead to good things.
> I'm not sure why we'd want to have less engagement especially at a time when there aren't F2F meetings.
More engagement doesn't necessarily translate into more value.
For example, I can focus more on the task at hand if I’m not having to worry about everyone judging my video feed. Do you need to see me if I’m still adequately communicating? Cognitive load is a thing.
> So, what you're saying is that you find it hurts your productivity to read productivity articles, so you try not to put yourself into the position where you have to read them?
No, it hurts my happiness to read productivity articles, so I skip them.
<i>The author has an issue with productivity for the sake of productivity.</i>
I agree with that sentiment.
<i>Spending time helping people in need is obviously a valuable and wise use of time, but you shouldn't feel guilty for not spending every waking moment increasing your net worth.</i>
Again, I agree, but the author seems to be A-OK with goofing off for years instead of pitching in with the rest of us.
> It is extremely easy to disconnect from work. Turn off your laptop and live your life.
The problem is not that I can’t stop work. I can sit around for a week and nobody would notice. It happens.
But when I do work, I care. I want it to be nice, beautiful and make everyone’s lives easier. And I want that now. I cannot just flip those switches off when I go home (or am home, when doing wfh). It would probably be objectively better if I rested my mind a bit, but my work happens in big bursts.
>My brain requires time to focus inward to formulate complex thoughts, and interrupting any time I pause narrating doesn't give me that time to think.
So basically what you are saying is that you are some kind of snowflake that requires it's own room to concentrate and be productive and you can't even think while doodling on a whiteboard.
In my books that counts against you, that doesn't mean you are straight out, but it definitely makes you a liability to some degree.
> Also, efficiency is not everything. We are not computers that can just chug away on tasks infinitely. Any non trivial work, you won't be able to finish in one sitting. Some interruptions are inevitable and healthy and whatever methodology, you will lose some progress on the way and have to rework things. And it's also about priorities in life. Is the work-related, unfinished task really important / interesting enough to get stuck in your head outside of work hours? Maybe the problem is not getting interrupted, but ability to interrupt yourself and separate different aspects of life.
Glad you're able to do that. Personally for me, it's really hard.
When I'm in the middle of deep coding session, if someone interrupts me, it feels literally like she wakes me up in the middle of the night.
If you're sleeping, and someone wakes you up and asks some question, or tells a story, can you always get back sleeping again afterwards? Personally, I fail at this completely.
And for me, it's very similar with development: after even a little distraction, it might take a lot of time for me to restore the context again.
I know there are people (a very few of my friends) that can fall asleep almost immediately after getting into bed. So, maybe there are people that can handle development distractions equally well!
I'm always confused by people who struggle so much with being able to quickly answer a question and get back to what they were doing.
Also, here you're prioritising your work over someone else's.
> I simply can't stand incessantly being asked questions, I view it as a type of interruption
Well, you are being interrupted. But you're being paid to be interrupted.
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