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How to explain to a layperson why a developer should not be interrupted? (2011)
- winteriscoming 10y agoI have found that, let alone explaining it to laymen, it's hard enough to explain it to your own team members and expect them not to keep interrupting you. I have realized that, the bigger the team, the less productive I keep getting, due to the constant interruptions.
- dredmorbius 10y agoI'm looking at networks as having two primary operational functions. One is a value function, which is best described by Tilly-Odlyzko: v = n * log(n) (Tilly would be @tilly on HN, BTW.) The "log(n)" factor means that as you add additional elements, the positive benefit decreases as n increases. The other is a cost function, which is probabalistic between any two nodes. It's actually closer to the old (and incaccurate) Metcalfe rule: c = k * n^2 Where k is some cost constant. The larger k, the smaller the productive size of the network, the smaller k, the larger the network can grow. Hence: network size is constrained by the cost constant. What you're observing is the cost constant of team size as a factor of interruptions. Since any member might interrupt you at any time, and those interruptions all have roughly equal cost, but the positive contribution a team member can make is limited by their ability to provide useful inputs, and the k factor is relatively large, few technical teams seem to scale much beyond about 6-12 members. (Larger teams are almost always subdivided into smaller effective working groups.)
- dredmorbius 10y agoCorrection: tilly is @btilly.
- skyisblue 10y agoIf you have a good manager they will protect you from all these interruptions. Your manager's job is to ensure you are productive. These constant interruptions aren't making you productive, so your manager should do their best to minimise these interruptions. One way a manager can help minimise interruptions is to create a policy. Have an issue? Create a ticket and the team will get back to you when we are available.
- bec123 10y agoWhich is great until u work in open plan environment which makes it impossible
- bythckr 10y agoOpen plan env is a bad idea. Thanks to companies like Google using open plan, it's considered that you are lazy if you object to having an open plan.
- bythckr 10y agoOpen plan env is a bad idea. Thanks to companies like Google using open plan, it's considered that you are lazy if you object to having an open plan.
- dingaling 10y ago> Your manager's job is to ensure you are productive. The manager's priority should be organisational productivity; he's managing a team of people for the purpose of contributing to the greater organisation, not for the personal seclusion and self-fulfillment of each team member. Those are, sadly, secondary or tertiary goals. If other people in the organisation can't be productive because he's blocking them from validly interrupting one of his reports then he needs to change. "The needs of the many", and all that stuff. Sometimes the most productive days are those spent helping other people to be productive.
- mseebach 10y agoIf supporting the wider org is part of the teams responsibilities, perhaps you will need to dedicate a first line person on a rotation to deal with incoming noise, to shield the rest of the team. It kind of sucks for the person in that role, but it's good for the rest of the team. Of course, if your job is to be part of a responsive support org, you probably can't expect much seclusion at any time.
- phreack 10y agoInstead of even bothering explaining, I used to just code at home during the night... You can guess what that did to my body in the long run, so even if it's a hassle, letting people who could distract you during same working hours know to leave you be for a time is worth it.
- wimagguc 10y agoRelated question: how to explain a non-developer manager that you will switch Slack off for periods of time even when working from home? With all seriousness, Slack somehow became the measure of at-work-ness, but it's the worst when I'm programming. It's like an all-day meeting without an agenda.
- WalterSear 10y agoThey don't respect the 'Do Not Disturb' notifier?
- wimagguc 10y agoThey still write in a 'I'll put this here and they respond when they can, it's at least someone else's problem' manner. Slack won't play the sound effects, but the badge will be there, red and proud with a big number on, and you'll see it at every cmd-tab. (I wonder how common OCD is among programmers.)
- lazyasciiart 10y agoCan't you mute channels to stop even unread counts from showing up? Like the last part of this article: https://lauraroeder.com/how-to-customize-slack-so-it-stops-murdering-your-productivity-82c5a6be55dc#.q9bhlvovj https://lauraroeder.com/how-to-customize-slack-so-it-stops-m...
- Symbiote 10y ago> the badge will be there, red and proud with a big number on, and you'll see it at every cmd-tab On KDE, I'd use the "Filters" setting for either the Task Switcher (Alt+Tab thing) or the Task Manager (taskbar), or both. They can show or ignore windows from other virtual desktops, screens, or minimized ones. [Or "activities", but I've never used that feature, and I'm not sure what it's for.] I usually keep Skype on my second screen, covered with other work, and have the task switcher set to only scroll through not-minimized things on the current screen. Edit: So "Activities" are something like super-virtual desktops, and appear to be exactly for this purpose, to separate different tasks.
- tta 10y agohttps://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...
- srvlsct 10y agoCame here to say this. This comic is the perfect explanation of interrupting the thought process.
- alexkon 10y agoHere’s another take on this: http://alexthunder.livejournal.com/309815.html http://alexthunder.livejournal.com/309815.html
- dba7dba 10y agoI would use cooking analogy. Once you start cooking a dish (well, most of the dishes), you can't stop the involved steps until the intended food is ready. If you interrupt the cook cooking the food often and/or long enough, the food will come out burnt, too soggy, or etc. 1. The key lesson is coding involves juggling many things, just in our head. 2. Cooking involves juggling many things in pot, on frying pan, etc. Anything that interrupts the juggling in cooking can cause one ingredient to come out bad, and you have bad tasting food or worse you have to start from scratch again. Same with coding. So, please do not bother coders. Even if they seem to be just browsing websites and not typing away furiously. They are most likely looking for answer to a coding question they need help with by reading on sites like stackoverflow.com. And this requires same amount of focus. Thank you.
- ultra2d 10y agoMy thoughts exactly. You don't suddenly drop all kitchen utensils to vacuum the living room, do you?
- d--b 10y agoI agree with the second answer on that thread... "I just need to focus for a while" is a perfectly understandable explanation. The problem is that other people just don't care that you need to concentrate... The OP himself dismisses "the funny guy from accounting", as if accountants didn't need to concentrate!
- junke 10y ago> The OP himself dismisses "the funny guy from accounting", as if accountants didn't need to concentrate! OP doesn't dismiss all accountants, it is an example picked at random. If OP only said "that funny guy", would you say "as if guys didn't need to concentrate!"?
- d--b 10y agoI'm not saying he dismisses all accountants. The connotation that I get from reading this is "that funny guy from accounting (who really doesn't know what focusing means because non-developers don't get it)". I mean the accountants probably complain about the funny IT dude who's always pulling their legs. My point is that the guy from accounting is probably very focused when he has to close the year's budget by the end of the day, but once it's done, he doesn't care anymore, he's very happy bothering people by joking around. It's not a matter of explaining what focusing is. It's simple office dynamics. If you find your productivity is declining because of interruptions, you need to find ways to avoid being interrupted rather than asking others to not bother you.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- aries1980 10y agoI can recommend “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”. It has case-studies with loads of non-tech people, including Carl G. Jung and Charles Dickens. http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Business/Deep-Work-Audiobook/B01D0E32T8 http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Business/Deep-Work-Audiobook/B01...
- known 10y agoTell him a Surgeon should not be disturbed when he is doing surgery;
- prodmerc 10y agoThen you're the asshole who compares himself to a surgeon heh
- chii 10y agorefactoring is like doing surgery on code. it's just not life threatening, but still require concentration
- jazoom 10y agoI'm a doctor that performs minor surgical procedures, as well as a coder. Unless something is going wrong in the procedure, I'd much rather get interrupted while performing surgery than while coding. YMMV.
- nc 10y agoWatch 'The Social Network'
- adminofuunix 10y ago1.)blame the CEO - fastest way to disaster is to distract the driver of train or nuclear power plant. 2.)developer mistake can correct and rollback in 2 days. System Adminsitrator mistake takes out SSH, SSL, DNS bad router for entire country? WTG? or the letter before the letter G. 3.)developers are RE-active and not PRO-active or thinking to prevent. Tell everyone not to disturb. Unless the hotel is burning down, DO NOT DISTURB. I am on my honeymoon night and need to 'concentrate.' 4.)IMHO, personal opinion only after 21 years work. Stupidity and active DOS or denial of service is common. GET USED TO IT. Maybe you or I have to ask to work at NIGHT SHIFT ONLY. I needed to 'fool around' with the company database at that time. 5.)night shift at midnight means goodbye to 'normal life.' see your girlfriend? see your friends? trouble sleeping? boss keeps wondering if you are 'just sleeping on the job'? 6.)productivity, bonus and 'strange looks' are all in play! LOL. I wrote a lot less LOC lines of code. I spent time thinking like a CTO at high levels. this is very dangerous. No financial bonus for pleasing and sucking up to the bosses.. I am just a lowly system adminstrator doing 'special projects' and helping out a few consultants. 7.)I knew we had almost crashed a few times. I knew the company paid consultants a LOWER than good market rate. I knew I had the will and the amazing insanity to do the night shift. 8.)does this help you how to explain to the 72.5% of 'useless eaters' and less than 102 on 100 scale IQ normal employees how the game is played? 9.)Yes, I did want to get to an independent company, but that was only a 'motivating dream.' Its a fair amount of luck or maybe I just call it sour grapes. 10.)this is a fairy tale or fictional or maybe it did happen during the times of the competitors to AT&T mother bell telephone with XXXXXX orgs. LOL PS. It's you and one other guy. We are not friends, nor gay lovers. When the simple Perl mistake or s wit you know the word - XXit hits the fan, you have no witnesses nor allies. Your career is finished and you move to the other coast. NYC to Silicon Valley or the other way. No, and I don't even like Perl, maybe shell, but....
- Veen 10y agoI'm a writer by trade and I have a similar problem. It's nigh-on impossible to communicate why it's painful to be interrupted when I'm typing or even just staring into space thinking. Much conflict with significant others has been caused by their inability to understand that breaking my train of thought costs me more than 30 seconds of productivity. In fact, it's especially bad when it looks like I'm doing nothing. Often, I'll be working out the structure of a long article in my head, crafting the argument and how each paragraph contributes to it. The whole thing collapses when I'm interrupted. At that point, asking if I want a cup of tea is likely to receive a sharp response. Today, I don't bother explaining: I just make sure that I have a place I can go where I won't be interrupted.
- Radim 10y agoDoes anyone else do this? I can switch to autopilot and apparently hold shallow conversations with people, even when deeply concentrated. I don't remember any of it afterward, no idea what I said, but apparently it's good enough and coherent to get people off my back. "Yes, tea please."
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI have this when I'm fully "in the flow". I can talk with people about trivial / irrelevant things on full autopilot. OTOH, when I'm struggling with something that requires unpleasant amounts of concentration, any interruption is likely to receive a very unpleasant response.
- chrisdone 10y agoI came to the same conclusion. If you have someone around who can't help interrupt you, either by directly asking you for responses or doing distracting behavior, it's wise to simply get your own room, in the house or in a coworking space or a proper office. It doesn't matter how much you try to coach and train someone to respect your need for peace and quiet while working. It only leads to arguments and bitterness. It's much healthier to solve it by physically moving to a quiet place. I found that while it's possible to get work done in that environment, moving to your own space by yourself is a whole different experience. You can finally concentrate without fear of distraction (which is itself a distraction).
- oneeyedpigeon 10y agoAm I the only one getting slowly more and more infuriated by this modern trend of writing a statement and pretending it's a question just by adding a question mark at the end?
- chrisdone 10y agoI don't think you can "explain" to people that you need to concentrate, if you've already told them in ten different ways, then they know what you think you need, and either (1) don't care about your needs, in which case you are doomed, or (2) they see in your actions that you still do your job anyway, so it can't be that bad. The fact is, for most of us, even if we are interrupted, we still do get the job done. Just not as comfortably or in such detail as we'd like. I've been through the "explaining" phase of trying to help my spouse, who cares a lot about my ability to do my job, and yet is a prolific interrupter, "get it". It hasn't worked for me. It leads to bitterness and arguments. The healthy solution: If you need peace and quiet to concentrate, like me, get yourself your own space. Start going to a different room to concentrate, or a co-working space (if you work from home). Depending on your job, you might only need a certain percentage of the day for solid concentration.
- angerman 10y agoThis is probably (and sadly) the same conclusion I came to.
- mtw 10y agoI find coworking spaces can be worse, especially if you are the kind of outgoing person who's been to various tech meetups. Everyone wants to say hi and ask what are you working on, invite you for coffee, or ask random questions about their business. Going to a coffee shop and putting headphones can be more productive
- Arizhel 10y agoIt's funny how, for many people, working in a coffee shop, a place that's open, public, and full of people, allows them to concentrate better on their work than most other places. Of course, it makes sense if you really think about it. In a coffee shop, no one is going to come up and tap on your shoulder and ask you some stupid question they could have asked in email, nor do people generally have loud, annoying conversations right next to you there. There's plenty of people in a coffee shop, but they're strangers, they keep to themselves, and they don't talk except perhaps to their singular companion in a quiet manner.
- wantoncl 10y agoDeveloping code is like having an orgasm. They are primarily mental processes that require focus and concentration on specific things. Any distraction, no matter how small, will derail the entire process. Once interrupted, the person cannot just pick up from that point, they have to start over from the beginning and redo all that work. I've found this analogy pretty solid, even though it sounds silly. You certainly don't need to explain to anyone about interrupted orgasm, or what it takes to get back on track. (Of course, for orgasm, that re-work is pretty enjoyable, unless you are a professional who gets paid to produce orgasms for other people who demand them of you. Therefore all coders are whores. ;)
- jasonkostempski 10y agoI get my tasks done very quickly so distractions aren't an issue.
- thesmallestcat 10y agoSo bouncing ideas off of a colleague is asking for a reach-around then? And open offices are a big orgy!
- lohengramm 10y agoFun fact: in Portuguese, we call prostitutes "garota de programa", which literally means "program's girl", or "a girl who makes programs". "Program" in this context means "sexual service". It is a known inside joke among Brazilian programmers to call ourselves "garoto de programa", which means "program's boy" - laymen therefore think we are referring to male prostitution.
- TobyGiacometti 10y agoOne tactic I would use (and have used before) if I can't switch places is to just put on headphones and listen to music. You could even leave the music away and just have the headphones on. This was usually quiet successful in letting people know that I don't want to be distracted.
- Arizhel 10y agoI've tried that, and it doesn't work, in fact it makes it much worse. You get lulled into deep concentration successfully, and then some asshole comes up behind you and taps you on the shoulder.
- ourcat 10y agoAsk them to build a big house of cards. Then burst into the room wearing a big flowing cape just before they finish the top layer.
- norswap 10y agoWhat about embracing interruptions, in the spirit of anti-fragility? If you can't get back to coding productively after an interruption, it probably means that your code or your process isn't really up to snuff (or more charitably, that it could be improved). I try (and do not always succeed) in coding like this, privileging tiny changes, keeping a backlog of tasks to complete, avoiding "recursive tasks" (starting a task in the middle of another because it would help), putting in a lot of helpful comments. It also entails refactoring early and often, sometimes rewriting. I work on highly sophisticated programs (compilers) and if I didn't do that, I'd get nothing done. I also do this for my side-project. I optimize them for "re-starting". When I open them after a few weeks of inactivity, I don't want to get discouraged, and want to be able to start being productive as fast as possible.
- gumoro 10y agoGood point. While I still don't think this general idea can be applied universally, lately I've come to realize it can help a lot. But I feel I only have a blurry/incomplete understanding of what exactly "it" is or entails to, and would love to hear other ideas or insights. For now I have: - write down everything: tasks, discussions & conclusions, etc (you said "keep a backlog of tasks") - when interrupted while coding, insert a //TODO with a few words that will help rebuild context on resuming, maybe with a statement that does not compile to quickly get back there (if the interruption leads you to navigate away from that file/editor) - if a few seconds are not enough, explain "I need a few minutes to write down stuff and I'll get back to you". This is always accepted without issue. Although it's difficult when the person politely waits behind you :) - if you figure you really cannot be interrupted on the spot, make great effort to explain this as gently as possible, and offer to get back to them later: again, always accepted by peers (in my experience). If the interaction stays below a few seconds, AND I stayed agreeable & polite, I have little problem getting back in the flow. When I reply too curtly or let the slightest trace of anger show, then I fail to get back in, because my thoughts are polluted with remorse & guilt. - over time, learn to identify in advance when you are about to enter a "really-really-no-interrupt zone", and then wear audio gear or something to signal this. And don't do it too often. - I also noticed "recursive tasks" are a challenge. You suggest to avoid them when they are just ideas that help the previous task, but what if they are impediments that MUST be fixed? (Google "malcolm hal fixing light bulb" for hilarious illustration). For this I only have "write down everything", but it gets frustrating with the feeling I'm getting slow due to constant swapping, and could be faster if I could count on short term memory alone (and no interruptions...). Anwyay... would love to read more about "embrace interruptions" & "optimize for re-starting".
- sebringj 10y agoThere is something to be said about this problem diminishing over time with lots of practice being in chaotic environments. I've worked at home for over a decade and have 3 young sons. There are varying degrees of distraction to overcome. Not to be overlooked, one is just being alone itself with the ability to do anything else. Ambient or sudden noise without direct interruption is another in which Drum Code trance techno seems to help. The last level is the ability to ignore people or hand gesture you are busy in such a way that it neither offends yet also conveys empathy in both directions while not taking you out of the zone. These are not easy things but are achievable because you can't keep exposing to Bob or Sally analogies while maintaining sanity.
- nickpeterson 10y agoI work from home almost every day, in a house with a four your old and a 1 year old. Ultimately, my wife does a pretty good job at not having them interrupt me, but often I find I have the opposite problem of hearing my wife struggling with the children and go help her. It's self-serving in a way, because my wife is generally happier if her day isn't a struggle. Often if I need to focus on something uninterrupted I'll put on some headphones with some trance/house music and pound away for a bit. This only kind of helps though, because I find it's only good if you have a lot of manual work to do where you already understand the solution. I'm often at the whiteboard for an hour or so for every 20-30 minutes of coding.
- bertlequant 10y agoA lot of this seems to blame others for a personal lack of attention and productivity. Even the Joe Spolsky article someone linked to below, lists a whole lot of reasons that diminish his productivity, none of them being directly caused by him. I am quite the opposite. I tend to think focusing on maximum productivity makes me less productive, as I will tend to get peeved about things I have no control over. Sure, if someone interrupts you while you have set it up to be clear you are busy (whether on your work messenger or email) then that is annoying and not cool. But it's hard for me to get annoyed at others when I haven't done the ground work to set up those obvious protections.
- secstate 10y agoSo much this. As a practitioner of modern stoicism, the idea that my productivity should be tied to external influences is anathema to my philosophy. Working from home and having three kids between 6 and 10 months, the onus is on my to manage my expectations and my spouses expectations for when I'm going to be working, what work is interruptible, and what's most important to me. Given that my priorities go: family, friends (spouse included here), work, volunteering, that means that if the family isn't functioning well, that's where my attention goes until we're in a good place. I've seen a lot of people either neglect their personal priority list or simply not have one, and then wonder why their life is falling apart around them, or they from time to time feel void or uninspired. All this to say, productivity for productivity's sake is the behavior of cancer. If I have an un-productive day from a work perspective, it's usually because I was tending to higher priorities in my life, and thus it is hardly the end of the world, and I make a plan for getting things back on an even keel there so tomorrow or the next day I will have a more productive day, and make sure to communicate this to my supervisor in my next 1:1.
- 5_minutes 10y agoAren't you throwing many different things on the same pile here? If your 3 kids interrupt you, each one each hour. Do you get stuff done? Your priorities are excellent. But unless you are wealthy enough that money is not a priority and/or have a wife that's a housewife, or nanny or maid... all interruptions in the "zone" are real interruptions that have a significant cost involved. PS. Modern stoicism is awesome.
- deepaksurti 10y agoWork profitably for yourself in your own private (non-co) working space. Most of us though are not in that situation, but I think (naively) it need not be like that.
- usernam 10y agoConcentration should be familiar to anyone having done any sort of higher grade education. Or skilled work. Martial arts. Music. Even several art forms. This is not something specific to programming, at all. I'm not sure why "the zone" and specific euphemisms are used in programming and being reposted, as if concentration was specific to programming itself (and I say that as a programmer). Consider this thought: a layperson not understanding what concentration is all about speaks volumes about his background. And I'll add: sadly.
- refurb 10y agoAgreed. The question comes across as a little out of touch. Does the OP think a blue collar worker doesn't understand being in the "zone"?
- 4258HzG 10y agoI would guess 'management' would be the more likely target. In jobs like sales and administration, being able to rapidly switch focus to what just came up is advantageous. The people on the manufacturing floor or operations I have worked with have the same issues with being interrupted during their work, though it's often an engineer that's the culprit. (Managers can quantify 'blue colar' productivity losses easier.)
- adrianratnapala 10y agoThe in such situations, engineers often are the managers. For example I asked an engineer uncle of mine what kind of salary to expect when moving back to Australia. He immediately started talking about middle-manager compensation.
- madmax108 10y agoYou'd be amazed at how many people just don't get it. I know people just like the ones described in the article who are more social butterflies, never needing to get "in the zone" as you put it (or needing to get into it much less often). For them, it's never about understanding depth, but more surface level stuff. For me, everyday starts with a period of time (15 min to half an hour) spent just trying to get myself to get back in the flow of what I need to get done, and if I'm interrupted by, say an unplanned meeting, or an impromptu chat with my manager, then I need to start all over again! :( When I'm in the zone, I can crunch stuff up in half or even a third of the time compared to if I'm repeatedly interrupted, but that's pretty much a nobrainer I guess
- cromulent 10y agoRelevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- milesf 10y agoMy favourite is to explain interruptions of any kind are like teleporting me 1 hour away. You may have "just a quick question", but as soon as you walk away I now need an hour to travel back to get to where I was. For some people it's much shorter, but I find saying 1 hour gets the point across. Otherwise folks may think "bah, it only takes them 15 minute... I think it's worth interrupting him". Bottom line: we need to teach awareness to those who are ignorant, set boundaries, and defend those boundaries once they are set. Otherwise you are dealing with disrespect. I can tolerate many things, but I do not, and will not, tolerate disrespect.
- hanney 10y agoThis has always been my go-to diagram to describe an interruption http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-...
- valuearb 10y agoGive the developers offices with doors. A shut door is a good barrier to casual interruptions.
- SnowingXIV 10y agoThis keeps popping up and more and more. Being a programmer isn't some completely unique snowflake experience. Concentration exists in all fields. Try writing a novel or composing a song. Having someone interrupt your "zone" is just as unsettling and frustrating. Because we have to think through some patterns and logic doesn't mean our focus is any more enlightened. This just feels like continued gatekeeping.
- dasmoth 10y agoNovelists don't generally get packed into open plan offices and told they need to collaborate more. I think a better question is why, of all the kinds of "flow"-based knowledge work, has programming become so strongly associated with the idea that interruptability and collaboration should take precedence over sitting down and working through the problem?
- SnowingXIV 10y agoI don't think it's unique there either, sure Bay Area probably has a strong culture around that but even in other industries like finance you'll still see them embracing the open office model which causes the same problems. The conversation should be more focused on advocating for better management tactics and transparency on the work being done (e.g HR missing the mark on knowing anything about the positions they hire). Focus is needed in most (all?) professions and I'd argue so is collaboration.
- Arizhel 10y agoAlso relevant I think is that novelists are a vanishingly small part of the population. Very, very few people make a living writing novels or other lengthy texts, and not that many people write novels as a hobby (or hoping to sell their book). Not many people write songs either, the other example given here. All in all, I'd say that there just aren't that many jobs these days that require a lot of individual concentration and focus. Those that do seem to have the reputation that it's needed: novelists, some college professors (when they're writing theses/dissertations/whatever), etc. But it's weird; if you asked most people if they think novelists would be more productive at home in their private office, or in a loud, bustling open-office environment, I'll bet most would answer the former. But for some reason people don't seem to think programmers need that.
- Communitivity 10y agoThe way I explain it is that the biggest part of what I do is building a mental model of how the subsystem I am working on should work, or how it does work, in my head. That this model has many, many pieces, and building it is akin to painstakingly building a house of cards, one level at a time. Then I get interrupted, and 'whoosh', the house of cards comes crashing down. Sure I can get back to there, but I have to repeat the process of building the model. This may not be the way it is for everyone, I am a very pattern-oriented thinker.
- dredmorbius 10y agoThere is ample evidence and testimony to support this, and it applies to far more than just programming. This Is Why You Shouldn't Interrupt a Programmer (comic) https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-programmer/ https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt... And it's gone https://jaxenter.com/aaaand-gone-true-cost-interruptions-128741.html https://jaxenter.com/aaaand-gone-true-cost-interruptions-128... (Includes reference to meetings: "If you think an unplanned interruption is bad, how about a planned one? If you know you have a meeting later today, your whole day is ruined because you unwillingly tailor it to make sure you finish your tasks on time.") Programmer, Interrupted http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190891/programmer_interrupted.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190891/programmer_inte... Programmers teach non-geeks the true cost of interruptions http://www.daedtech.com/programmers-teach-non-geeks-the-true-cost-of-interruptions/ http://www.daedtech.com/programmers-teach-non-geeks-the-true... @pg, "Maker's Schedule" http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html Don Knuth, on email: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Euno/email.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Euno/email.html Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study. Peiter Hintjens noted that meetings are serialisation points http://hintjens.com/blog%3A100 http://hintjens.com/blog%3A100 As numerous people have noted, writers and other creatives, not just programmers, viscerally hate interruptions. Neal Stephenson, "Why I am a Bad Correspondant" http://www.nealstephenson.com/why-i-am-a-bad-correspondent.html http://www.nealstephenson.com/why-i-am-a-bad-correspondent.h... John Cleese: "Busyness and interruptions kill your producti vity": http://www.flowfinders.com/productivity/busyness-interruption-destroy-your-creativity.html http://www.flowfinders.com/productivity/busyness-interruptio... Charlie Stross (@cstross): Writer, Interrupted: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/writer-interrupted.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/writer-i... A Brain Pickings piece has selections from Hemmingway, Dylan, and Mann: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/25/the-psychology-of-writing-daily-routine/ https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/25/the-psychology-of-w... There is much general advice to writers on avoiding and minimising interruptions: http://productivewriters.com/2011/10/10/minimizing-writing-interruptions/ http://productivewriters.com/2011/10/10/minimizing-writing-i... http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/please_stop_interrupting_me http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/please_stop_int... Generally, the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi And of course there's Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and his Person from Porlock: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock
- xchaotic 10y agoI can distract myself with twitter, youtube, stackexchange, even doing chores in the house, you name it. I don't even need anyone else to be distracted, thanks!
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