My personal experience, however, despite discussions and requests not to be disturbed other than at predefined times, I still get interrupted far too often. Oth

My personal experience, however, despite discussions and requests not to be disturbed other than at predefined times, I still get interrupted far too often. Other people will place their "need" to get something from you over your productivity almost always. That's an issue of: 1. Office environment. 2. Work culture. Put folks in an open office space where they're free to "collaborate", and no great surprise folks get interrupted all the time. My own work environment gives every engineer two person offices with a door they can shut, and we've all taken advantage of that on many occasions. To retain some productivity and sanity, I try to work from home 2 days per week. It is telling that on those days I often feel mentally fatigued before the end of the day. And that's a reasonable compromise. You're not totally prioritizing your own productivity to the exclusion of all else, but you're also arranging some "flow time". My problem is with engineers who are chronically out of sync with the rest of their team all the time. I've personally seen how detrimental that can be to team gel and productivity.