"An interruption - no matter how short or slight - collapses that whole mental model in fragments on the floor. I literally have to re-build it before I can con

"An interruption - no matter how short or slight - collapses that whole mental model in fragments on the floor. I literally have to re-build it before I can continue to work and that typically takes anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour." One thing that helps me with this is to "sketch out" my plan in comments before I start. That way, if I get interrupted, I have comments to jog my memory of what I was doing. This also helps when I have to chase a rabbit trail. Maybe my comment for a particular step just says "capture the substring and replace it with foo," but to actually do that, I have to look up the method documentation. When I finish with that detail, I don't want to have to say "now where was I?" My next comment helps me get back on track.