7 ms·

This is a good article. The amount of context switching I have to do day to day means my actual productivity is almost nothing. 4 to 8 meetings a day. 100+ em

This is a good article. The amount of context switching I have to do day to day means my actual productivity is almost nothing. 4 to 8 meetings a day. 100+ emails Teams and slack constantly going off Yet I'm still supposed to produce actual quality code as well. It's like trying to work in a mosh pit

deterministic 3y ago
If you are in 4 or more meetings in a day and receive 100+ emails then your manager is incompetent and should be fired. The whole point of being a good manager is to maximise the real work produced by the team. Which means minimising interruptions.
binkHN 3y ago
Yep. And this is why my work calendar contains several hour blocks where I can focus on the things that I want to focus on and other blocks here and there to do the things you noted.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  So is mine. People just ignore it, most of my meetings are large group meetings.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    The only solution is, with sufficient bravado, you can refuse the meetings and risk getting fired if need be. If you are good and they ain’t struggling then they probably will work around your preference and keep you. If you ain’t good work on that. If they are struggling then the decision is whether to stay (based on your ethics and situation) Too many meetings indicates some issue with the division or prioritization at work. Tell them if you do 2 unrelated tasks and switch between them then it is guaranteed they will get work product later than if you do one at a time. This is guaranteed. If the tasks are related it might be OK but this is a rare exception in coding. Building sheds it may be ok (lay all the foundations first). But then laying all the foundations is the task unit so again this might apply. Tell them that if management keep changing their mind, it is like calling the pizza restaurant and changing your order every 15 minutes. Food will come late. Also context switching loses time. For non technicals that don’t understand this give them an IQ test, them every 10 minutes pull the sheet away from them and swap it for a reading comp. test and then every 5 minutes tap them on the shoulder and ask about their pets. Just describing that means they should get it as almost every person had been subjected to those tests in interviews at one point.
  - fedorareis 3y ago
    I had a similar issue with people ignoring my availability at my previous company. I just started declining meetings. It forced people to either decide they didn’t need me in the meeting or they would reschedule it
sublinear 3y ago
I put myself on "tentative" in teams meetings except the ones with my direct team members. I don't check my email more than 5 times a day: start of day, mid morning, before lunch, mid afternoon, end of day. In your case that's 20 emails to look at each time and I bet adding some inbox rules would break it up into something even more manageable (3 to 5 emails per folder they hit). Teams and slack chats are muted by default for me unless I'm mentioned and that's what most people expect. This yields good ~90 minute chunks for me to work with despite all the noise. I don't even block out my schedule. I just let some days be shitty if they're going to be (usually no more than about 3 half days lost per week).
- hackernewds 3y ago
  You can use an app such as Day wise to batch your notifications, else I would totally not check anything. I still do want a ping, but only every X hours. Not sure if such an app exists for web/desktop.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  These are all pretty good ideas. Will give it a try. Thanks
- keyle 3y ago
  Same, but I get pinged twice per hour on average on Slack. And it's direct questions not @here. It drives me bonkers and I tell people off but somehow it still happens. I think direct conversations online is turning people into junkies of the now. I actually day dreamed about going back to emails sometimes last week... Then I woke up when the notification bell went off.
  - nvarsj 3y ago
    Just quit out of slack when you need to focus. I’ve done this before at gigs where people abused Slack notifications. The strategic solution is to improve the culture around chat notifications.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
submeta 3y ago
The issue arises with certain managers and non-specialized workers who operate in brief, scattered bursts of time. Their work pattern consists of making calls, writing emails, or superficially scouring the internet. These individuals often view quiet, focused colleagues with suspicion, misinterpreting their intense concentration for idleness as they sit at their desks, lost in their computer screens. Under the mistaken belief that they need to "shake things up," these managers or workers disrupt the focused workers by inundating them with a barrage of messages that demand immediate responses.
- cudgy 3y ago
  Many of these types like to wait till others (the smart ones reading and researching quietly) digest information for them and then go around acting like they figured it out themselves while they were also busy socializing in their meetings and garnering wisdom at the “water cooler”.
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    And many of these types really enjoy forced RTO as it turns out.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Way I see it, work hasn't changed much in 5000 years. You have hunters, farmers and miners. Top jobs usually go to hunters, and they don't understand grind or tending at all.
epolanski 3y ago
I've went from a 15 men team in big corp where we managed the search feature of an important ecommerce (both the search inputs and filters and result displaying): meeting, meetings, daily, all hands, ceremonies, meetings, committees, pings, train juniors here, train juniors there, help people with whatever is their issue, explain to the designer everything that's wrong or missing with their airbnb-cloned design (like missing all states for hover, disabled, etc). Now I work in a 3-men company where the CEO is mostly absent and it's me and another developer, that's it. We manage 5 different products. A single team in big corp would've not been able to handle even one of those I'm 100 % sure of it. I grew to appreciate more small teams made of quality strongly independent people, productivity is infinitely higher than big teams in big corps, those are doomed to be slow and inefficient. The only con in the current arrangement is that company is obviously very vulnerable to losing me or even my other colleague which is way more proficient and expert than me on many aspects. Our CEO understands that and his priority is to make us happy financially and by allowing us to work how we prefer, at the time we prefer. Best deal I've ever had in my life. I work much more than I did, but I like it, it's still less than 8 hours per day, but it's not meetings/youtube/chats/some coding.
- v-erne 3y ago
  >> Now I work in a 3-men company where the CEO is mostly absent and it's me and another developer, that's it. We manage 5 different products. A single team in big corp would've not been able to handle even one of those I'm 100 % sure of it. Are You me? Jokes aside, my company used to be a lot bigger, but most left, and others were moved to big bang rewrite project into modern js (which seems to be going nowhere). And now me and other developer, one admin and one product/sales guy keeps 20-modules app (modules as modules in ERP line env - meaning CRM, Accounts Recivable, Correspondence etc.) written in old forsaken tech working smoothly with new features added daily for 10 quite big customers. Its really amazing what can be achieved with small team who can focus their whole attention on helping customers directly, ignore unecessary meatings, work from home at whatever hours they want, and not re-doing the same stuff over and over with new shiny technology.
throwaway292939 3y ago
Sounds like you have to decide if you want to focus on being an IC vs managerial
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  Such is the life of a tech lead. Direct reports plus still need to actually build things. Plus still responsible for overall project guidance
Lolaccount 3y ago
This is the key issue/dilemma. And commenting here so I can return later to read the advice you received.

deterministic 3y ago

If you are in 4 or more meetings in a day and receive 100+ emails then your manager is incompetent and should be fired. The whole point of being a good manager is to maximise the real work produced by the team. Which means minimising interruptions.

binkHN 3y ago

Yep. And this is why my work calendar contains several hour blocks where I can focus on the things that I want to focus on and other blocks here and there to do the things you noted.

wonderwonder 3y ago
So is mine. People just ignore it, most of my meetings are large group meetings.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  The only solution is, with sufficient bravado, you can refuse the meetings and risk getting fired if need be. If you are good and they ain’t struggling then they probably will work around your preference and keep you. If you ain’t good work on that. If they are struggling then the decision is whether to stay (based on your ethics and situation) Too many meetings indicates some issue with the division or prioritization at work. Tell them if you do 2 unrelated tasks and switch between them then it is guaranteed they will get work product later than if you do one at a time. This is guaranteed. If the tasks are related it might be OK but this is a rare exception in coding. Building sheds it may be ok (lay all the foundations first). But then laying all the foundations is the task unit so again this might apply. Tell them that if management keep changing their mind, it is like calling the pizza restaurant and changing your order every 15 minutes. Food will come late. Also context switching loses time. For non technicals that don’t understand this give them an IQ test, them every 10 minutes pull the sheet away from them and swap it for a reading comp. test and then every 5 minutes tap them on the shoulder and ask about their pets. Just describing that means they should get it as almost every person had been subjected to those tests in interviews at one point.
- fedorareis 3y ago
  I had a similar issue with people ignoring my availability at my previous company. I just started declining meetings. It forced people to either decide they didn’t need me in the meeting or they would reschedule it

sublinear 3y ago

I put myself on "tentative" in teams meetings except the ones with my direct team members. I don't check my email more than 5 times a day: start of day, mid morning, before lunch, mid afternoon, end of day. In your case that's 20 emails to look at each time and I bet adding some inbox rules would break it up into something even more manageable (3 to 5 emails per folder they hit). Teams and slack chats are muted by default for me unless I'm mentioned and that's what most people expect. This yields good ~90 minute chunks for me to work with despite all the noise. I don't even block out my schedule. I just let some days be shitty if they're going to be (usually no more than about 3 half days lost per week).

hackernewds 3y ago
You can use an app such as Day wise to batch your notifications, else I would totally not check anything. I still do want a ping, but only every X hours. Not sure if such an app exists for web/desktop.
wonderwonder 3y ago
These are all pretty good ideas. Will give it a try. Thanks
keyle 3y ago
Same, but I get pinged twice per hour on average on Slack. And it's direct questions not @here. It drives me bonkers and I tell people off but somehow it still happens. I think direct conversations online is turning people into junkies of the now. I actually day dreamed about going back to emails sometimes last week... Then I woke up when the notification bell went off.
- nvarsj 3y ago
  Just quit out of slack when you need to focus. I’ve done this before at gigs where people abused Slack notifications. The strategic solution is to improve the culture around chat notifications.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

submeta 3y ago

The issue arises with certain managers and non-specialized workers who operate in brief, scattered bursts of time. Their work pattern consists of making calls, writing emails, or superficially scouring the internet. These individuals often view quiet, focused colleagues with suspicion, misinterpreting their intense concentration for idleness as they sit at their desks, lost in their computer screens. Under the mistaken belief that they need to "shake things up," these managers or workers disrupt the focused workers by inundating them with a barrage of messages that demand immediate responses.

cudgy 3y ago
Many of these types like to wait till others (the smart ones reading and researching quietly) digest information for them and then go around acting like they figured it out themselves while they were also busy socializing in their meetings and garnering wisdom at the “water cooler”.
- spacemadness 3y ago
  And many of these types really enjoy forced RTO as it turns out.
- namaria 3y ago
  Way I see it, work hasn't changed much in 5000 years. You have hunters, farmers and miners. Top jobs usually go to hunters, and they don't understand grind or tending at all.

epolanski 3y ago

I've went from a 15 men team in big corp where we managed the search feature of an important ecommerce (both the search inputs and filters and result displaying): meeting, meetings, daily, all hands, ceremonies, meetings, committees, pings, train juniors here, train juniors there, help people with whatever is their issue, explain to the designer everything that's wrong or missing with their airbnb-cloned design (like missing all states for hover, disabled, etc). Now I work in a 3-men company where the CEO is mostly absent and it's me and another developer, that's it. We manage 5 different products. A single team in big corp would've not been able to handle even one of those I'm 100 % sure of it. I grew to appreciate more small teams made of quality strongly independent people, productivity is infinitely higher than big teams in big corps, those are doomed to be slow and inefficient. The only con in the current arrangement is that company is obviously very vulnerable to losing me or even my other colleague which is way more proficient and expert than me on many aspects. Our CEO understands that and his priority is to make us happy financially and by allowing us to work how we prefer, at the time we prefer. Best deal I've ever had in my life. I work much more than I did, but I like it, it's still less than 8 hours per day, but it's not meetings/youtube/chats/some coding.

v-erne 3y ago
>> Now I work in a 3-men company where the CEO is mostly absent and it's me and another developer, that's it. We manage 5 different products. A single team in big corp would've not been able to handle even one of those I'm 100 % sure of it. Are You me? Jokes aside, my company used to be a lot bigger, but most left, and others were moved to big bang rewrite project into modern js (which seems to be going nowhere). And now me and other developer, one admin and one product/sales guy keeps 20-modules app (modules as modules in ERP line env - meaning CRM, Accounts Recivable, Correspondence etc.) written in old forsaken tech working smoothly with new features added daily for 10 quite big customers. Its really amazing what can be achieved with small team who can focus their whole attention on helping customers directly, ignore unecessary meatings, work from home at whatever hours they want, and not re-doing the same stuff over and over with new shiny technology.

throwaway292939 3y ago

Sounds like you have to decide if you want to focus on being an IC vs managerial

wonderwonder 3y ago
Such is the life of a tech lead. Direct reports plus still need to actually build things. Plus still responsible for overall project guidance

Lolaccount 3y ago

This is the key issue/dilemma. And commenting here so I can return later to read the advice you received.