> If someone wants to interact with you, they will definitely find a way to get your attention Fair enough. However, this does not account for a whole class of

> If someone wants to interact with you, they will definitely find a way to get your attention Fair enough. However, this does not account for a whole class of subtle little interactions and questions that might be inconsequential one at a time but add up in aggregate to a whole new useful body of communication. It's when you turn to a co-worker to ask a quick question and open your mouth and then pause because you see them with headphones on, and then give up on asking the question, because the question is actually tiny. In many many cases, that's how it should be - people deserve their focus time, and we know how much programmer distraction costs. But there is also huge value in team members being available, in the serendipitous "overheard" tidbits that often save duplicated effort, keep the team cohesive and un-siloed. In kind exchanges, not requests to RTFM. My point being that some (not all!) periods of time deserve to be "open office hours", where people sacrifice some of their focus and invite others to bug them seemingly frivolously. That means taking off headphones and letting oneself be distracted, soliciting easy quick questions. It may seem to conflict a lot of individual productivity advice, but it can help grow the brain trust of the team as a whole.