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I apologize if I sound overly negative, but why not just tell people to send you an email/message instead of interrupting you? You can even have a "do not distu

I apologize if I sound overly negative, but why not just tell people to send you an email/message instead of interrupting you? You can even have a "do not disturb" sign on your door. I'm sure slack has some functionality for turning off notifications when you're busy.

borntyping 9y ago
The purpose is tracking who is interrupting and why, not stopping interruptions, with the aim of finding patterns. In previous places I worked, it might have been quite useful if I kept a record of what questions people interrupted me to ask, so I could look back on that and work out parts of my software than needed to be made easier to use or have documentation added. If I was using OP's tool to track this, I'd probably include "interruptions" where someone sent an email or slack message as well as those where someone came over in person.
- masukomi 9y ago
  exactly right. I've been wanting to figure out how to get every message i receive on slack piped into a script so that i could then extract "interruptions" from that. but yes I track everything that wasn't a "planned interruption".
dlsym 9y ago
> You can even have a "do not disturb" sign on your door. You can't. At least not in modern open plan offices, nobody except management loves.
daveFNbuck 9y ago
I tell some people that every day. I even tell them that as they find an open desk near me so they can interrupt me before there's any chance for them to realize the solution to the problem on their own. They just smile and laugh and keep doing it.
nulagrithom 9y ago
I've tried this to no avail. Only change was "Sorry for interrupting you but..." or "Oh I thought this was a quick thing. I don't mean to interrupt you. Do you want me to come by again later?" Showing a breakdown of where my time had gone using Toggl (literally 50% to interruptions) did the trick.
masukomi 9y ago
(author here) I'm a tech lead. My job is to answer questions all day, but at the same time i need to actually do some tasks that require focus. I wanted to learn who is interrupting me, when, and why so that i could take measures to improve the situation. If Bob is always bugging me about X i could sit down with Bob and help him understand X better. If i'm always interrupted at a specific time of the day i could make sure i don't try and dive into anything that requires focus then. If many people are interrupting me about Y i can write documentation so they can answer their own questions. As @borntyping said "The purpose is tracking who is interrupting and why, not stopping interruptions, with the aim of finding patterns."

borntyping 9y ago

The purpose is tracking who is interrupting and why, not stopping interruptions, with the aim of finding patterns. In previous places I worked, it might have been quite useful if I kept a record of what questions people interrupted me to ask, so I could look back on that and work out parts of my software than needed to be made easier to use or have documentation added. If I was using OP's tool to track this, I'd probably include "interruptions" where someone sent an email or slack message as well as those where someone came over in person.

masukomi 9y ago
exactly right. I've been wanting to figure out how to get every message i receive on slack piped into a script so that i could then extract "interruptions" from that. but yes I track everything that wasn't a "planned interruption".

dlsym 9y ago

> You can even have a "do not disturb" sign on your door. You can't. At least not in modern open plan offices, nobody except management loves.

daveFNbuck 9y ago

I tell some people that every day. I even tell them that as they find an open desk near me so they can interrupt me before there's any chance for them to realize the solution to the problem on their own. They just smile and laugh and keep doing it.

nulagrithom 9y ago

I've tried this to no avail. Only change was "Sorry for interrupting you but..." or "Oh I thought this was a quick thing. I don't mean to interrupt you. Do you want me to come by again later?" Showing a breakdown of where my time had gone using Toggl (literally 50% to interruptions) did the trick.

masukomi 9y ago

(author here) I'm a tech lead. My job is to answer questions all day, but at the same time i need to actually do some tasks that require focus. I wanted to learn who is interrupting me, when, and why so that i could take measures to improve the situation. If Bob is always bugging me about X i could sit down with Bob and help him understand X better. If i'm always interrupted at a specific time of the day i could make sure i don't try and dive into anything that requires focus then. If many people are interrupting me about Y i can write documentation so they can answer their own questions. As @borntyping said "The purpose is tracking who is interrupting and why, not stopping interruptions, with the aim of finding patterns."