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At my company, we have daily standups and they throw off my whole morning. I only really work effectively when I am left to it and so have outlook/slack/message

At my company, we have daily standups and they throw off my whole morning. I only really work effectively when I am left to it and so have outlook/slack/messages turned off during periods where I am trying to focus - has got me in trouble with management a few times but I am not sure what else i can do. The piece was a good read but its so personal to me that it doesn't really help sadly.

cottage-cheese 3y ago
> has got me in trouble with management a few times but I am not sure what else i can do Don't worry about it. I think this is good advice for any software engineer. Eventually you'll be senior enough or on a different team and it won't be a problem.
- throwoutway 3y ago
  Agreed, I'd add to give your manager your phone number for emergencies and tell them you've allow-listed their number to ring when others can't. Then get back to flow
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    That sounds like a terrible idea to me, I'd never want to do that. If they like the work I do, management should learn to respect the way I do it.
    - dannyw 3y ago
      Sometimes there are genuine emergencies. If your company got hacked and is all hands on deck, you kinda have to be interrupted. There are situations in which emergencies may not be paged through normal systems.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      If you have the kind of clueless/toxic manager who is going to abuse this sort of arrangement, they are probably never going to agree to this sort of arrangement in this first place. For nearly all working relationships, I think it's reasonable to keep an emergency communication channel open.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      If you like the company/team enough to work there, you should learn to respect the way it operates. Hopefully it doesn't sound too combative, but I wanted to express that it's a two way street and compromises have to be found. I dislike various things in my company on a personal level, but often make sense from company/team point of view.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
greenie_beans 3y ago
daily check-in throws off my morning too. i have an hour from when i start til check-in, which is not enough time to get into deep work. looking forward to moving to a new timezone where i can take advantage of that timing with two hours before check-in.
- flir 3y ago
  WFH encourages scheduled meetings. It's a nightmare. I'd much rather just get an interruption out of the blue than have someone schedule a meeting to talk to me, because in the run-up to the meeting I won't try to start anything (what's the point if I've got a pending interruption?) At least my standups are first thing in the morning.
  - swozey 3y ago
    I don't understand it. My company is fully remote but they are absolutely horrendous at async comms. I was trying to walk someone through adding a docker build process to their CI and.... he just couldn't communicate/understand it through slack and he wanted to schedule a meeting. Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you. Thanks. Beyond that I refuse to do daily standups. I'll quit a company if they won't let me do async or communicate through slack. I'm not logging in and the start of my day being a meeting every single day. Absolutely not. I've been there before.
    - flir 3y ago
      Interesting. I like the daily meeting - gives me an anchor for my day that works with the meds. But like most ADHD people when unmedicated I get more productive at night, so I can see why you'd hate the daily checkin.
      - swozey 3y ago
        I'm about 20 years in and the first 10 years of my career as a SWE I had absolutely horrendous managers and daily checkins felt more like proving to someone that you had done any work the day prior, shaming you if you didn't produce enough. I have a hugely negative connotation to them even today, vs feeling that they're a positive team-collab sort of scenario. At two companies the actual CEO and CTO were in every single one of our standups (startups of course).
taude 3y ago
That's a bummer. My team does standup at 3 PM (we're also bi-costal), but I let the teams chose their time, and this is what one particular team chose. Maybe talk to some of your teammates, and maybe you all decide you want an afternoon standup, so you can hit the ground running in the morning for a few hours, before the interruptions start.
- interestica 3y ago
  This is extra useful if your mornings are left for you to continue working on any problem where you had the chance to "sleep on it".
hn1986 3y ago
we changed our standups to right after lunch and this has helped for everyone
atcalan 3y ago
I found that standups help crystallize social consequences in my VM prefrontal cortex so they help keep me honest.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Haha yes
Aurornis 3y ago
This exact complaint is very common among juniors I’ve mentored: A single meeting can destroy their productivity for hours following the meeting. The most successful advice I’ve found is to find a way to reset after meetings without using your computer. For whatever reason, they’re emotionally drained after meetings. They get back to their computer and reach for Reddit or Twitter or something for a low effort snack, which then spirals into an hour or more of doomscrolling or distractions. This then translates into self disappointment at their low productivity, which further drives them to seek more cheap online entertainment and the cycle repeats. So try something else. After your standup, go for a walk. Don’t use your phone. Do some stretches if you WFH or have a quiet place. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the rut that destroys your productivity.
- omginternets 3y ago
  This is an under-rated comment. I had a similar revelation that eventually led to the conclusion that the computer is a crucial part of the distraction, and that many activities are best performed at least partly without it. Examples include: - taking breaks - thinking through a problem
  - pstuart 3y ago
    Taking a walk is a good way to combine the two.
    - omginternets 3y ago
      Amen. Being inside all day is the other big factor, it seems.
- johnfn 3y ago
  I've tried all these tips and more. I've gone as far as taking a run after meetings. Nothing really works. I've come to conclude that the problem is the meeting itself, not the way you recuperate from it.
- laurels-marts 3y ago
klodolph 3y ago
Depends on where you are, but you can often get by, ignoring directives from management, if you are an active communicator and you’re completing assigned tasks. It’s still better to state your problem. I like to use the “non-violent communication” as a template. Something like, “When we have the standup, I have a hard time refocusing on work afterwards. I’m concerned about the impact this has on my productivity. Can I send status updates via Slack?” I’m not gonna pretend that this is a solution to your problem; I just want to sympathize and have a conversation about some of the strategies that we can use to fix problems with management that interfere with technical work.
JohnBooty 3y ago
Standups kind of destroy my flow as well. HOWEVER: - Everything destroys my flow anyway. So $#&#$% fragile. - Standups are 100x less destructive to my flow than random unscheduled synchronous communication. - For management and collaboration purposes, I recognize the need for some kind of synchronous communication for most projects/jobs. - When working remotely I've found video standups help keep me feeling connected to humanity. - Most teams I've been on are quite understanding if you choose to miss standup and offer an update via Slack instead because you're "in the zone." So.... they suck, but they have upsides for me, and I accept them as kind of a "least-bad compromise solution."
dboreham 3y ago
This is because your brain is like ChatGPT: it's in a loop generating the next symbol based on the prior context. You need to load the context up, then you're ready to generate symbols. If there's a BS meeting, all that context is paged out and now you need to re-load it. Plus there are motivational aspects that make "loading context some AH manager just blew out my brain" more difficult.
suzzer99 3y ago
I'm the opposite. I have ADHD and I function much better with meetings, talking it out with other programmers, and the cacophony of noise from an open office. Everything distracts me anyway, so I'd rather it be work stuff than my own thoughts about some awkward moment I had in 1995.
- hirvi74 3y ago
  It's probably because this is not an ADHD issue, but just a difference amongst individuals. I have ADHD and meetings do not really seem to impact my functions other than increasing urgency because I have Total Time - Meeting Time left to do whatever task..

cottage-cheese 3y ago

> has got me in trouble with management a few times but I am not sure what else i can do Don't worry about it. I think this is good advice for any software engineer. Eventually you'll be senior enough or on a different team and it won't be a problem.

throwoutway 3y ago
Agreed, I'd add to give your manager your phone number for emergencies and tell them you've allow-listed their number to ring when others can't. Then get back to flow
- TremendousJudge 3y ago
  That sounds like a terrible idea to me, I'd never want to do that. If they like the work I do, management should learn to respect the way I do it.
  - dannyw 3y ago
    Sometimes there are genuine emergencies. If your company got hacked and is all hands on deck, you kinda have to be interrupted. There are situations in which emergencies may not be paged through normal systems.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    If you have the kind of clueless/toxic manager who is going to abuse this sort of arrangement, they are probably never going to agree to this sort of arrangement in this first place. For nearly all working relationships, I think it's reasonable to keep an emergency communication channel open.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    If you like the company/team enough to work there, you should learn to respect the way it operates. Hopefully it doesn't sound too combative, but I wanted to express that it's a two way street and compromises have to be found. I dislike various things in my company on a personal level, but often make sense from company/team point of view.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

greenie_beans 3y ago

daily check-in throws off my morning too. i have an hour from when i start til check-in, which is not enough time to get into deep work. looking forward to moving to a new timezone where i can take advantage of that timing with two hours before check-in.

flir 3y ago
WFH encourages scheduled meetings. It's a nightmare. I'd much rather just get an interruption out of the blue than have someone schedule a meeting to talk to me, because in the run-up to the meeting I won't try to start anything (what's the point if I've got a pending interruption?) At least my standups are first thing in the morning.
- swozey 3y ago
  I don't understand it. My company is fully remote but they are absolutely horrendous at async comms. I was trying to walk someone through adding a docker build process to their CI and.... he just couldn't communicate/understand it through slack and he wanted to schedule a meeting. Great, now instead of being able to respond while working on other things I have to cut out an entire hour of my day just for you. Thanks. Beyond that I refuse to do daily standups. I'll quit a company if they won't let me do async or communicate through slack. I'm not logging in and the start of my day being a meeting every single day. Absolutely not. I've been there before.
  - flir 3y ago
    Interesting. I like the daily meeting - gives me an anchor for my day that works with the meds. But like most ADHD people when unmedicated I get more productive at night, so I can see why you'd hate the daily checkin.
    - swozey 3y ago
      I'm about 20 years in and the first 10 years of my career as a SWE I had absolutely horrendous managers and daily checkins felt more like proving to someone that you had done any work the day prior, shaming you if you didn't produce enough. I have a hugely negative connotation to them even today, vs feeling that they're a positive team-collab sort of scenario. At two companies the actual CEO and CTO were in every single one of our standups (startups of course).

taude 3y ago

That's a bummer. My team does standup at 3 PM (we're also bi-costal), but I let the teams chose their time, and this is what one particular team chose. Maybe talk to some of your teammates, and maybe you all decide you want an afternoon standup, so you can hit the ground running in the morning for a few hours, before the interruptions start.

interestica 3y ago
This is extra useful if your mornings are left for you to continue working on any problem where you had the chance to "sleep on it".

hn1986 3y ago

we changed our standups to right after lunch and this has helped for everyone

atcalan 3y ago

I found that standups help crystallize social consequences in my VM prefrontal cortex so they help keep me honest.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Haha yes

Aurornis 3y ago

This exact complaint is very common among juniors I’ve mentored: A single meeting can destroy their productivity for hours following the meeting. The most successful advice I’ve found is to find a way to reset after meetings without using your computer. For whatever reason, they’re emotionally drained after meetings. They get back to their computer and reach for Reddit or Twitter or something for a low effort snack, which then spirals into an hour or more of doomscrolling or distractions. This then translates into self disappointment at their low productivity, which further drives them to seek more cheap online entertainment and the cycle repeats. So try something else. After your standup, go for a walk. Don’t use your phone. Do some stretches if you WFH or have a quiet place. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the rut that destroys your productivity.

omginternets 3y ago
This is an under-rated comment. I had a similar revelation that eventually led to the conclusion that the computer is a crucial part of the distraction, and that many activities are best performed at least partly without it. Examples include: - taking breaks - thinking through a problem
- pstuart 3y ago
  Taking a walk is a good way to combine the two.
  - omginternets 3y ago
    Amen. Being inside all day is the other big factor, it seems.
johnfn 3y ago
I've tried all these tips and more. I've gone as far as taking a run after meetings. Nothing really works. I've come to conclude that the problem is the meeting itself, not the way you recuperate from it.
laurels-marts 3y ago

klodolph 3y ago

Depends on where you are, but you can often get by, ignoring directives from management, if you are an active communicator and you’re completing assigned tasks. It’s still better to state your problem. I like to use the “non-violent communication” as a template. Something like, “When we have the standup, I have a hard time refocusing on work afterwards. I’m concerned about the impact this has on my productivity. Can I send status updates via Slack?” I’m not gonna pretend that this is a solution to your problem; I just want to sympathize and have a conversation about some of the strategies that we can use to fix problems with management that interfere with technical work.

JohnBooty 3y ago

Standups kind of destroy my flow as well. HOWEVER: - Everything destroys my flow anyway. So $#&#$% fragile. - Standups are 100x less destructive to my flow than random unscheduled synchronous communication. - For management and collaboration purposes, I recognize the need for some kind of synchronous communication for most projects/jobs. - When working remotely I've found video standups help keep me feeling connected to humanity. - Most teams I've been on are quite understanding if you choose to miss standup and offer an update via Slack instead because you're "in the zone." So.... they suck, but they have upsides for me, and I accept them as kind of a "least-bad compromise solution."

dboreham 3y ago

This is because your brain is like ChatGPT: it's in a loop generating the next symbol based on the prior context. You need to load the context up, then you're ready to generate symbols. If there's a BS meeting, all that context is paged out and now you need to re-load it. Plus there are motivational aspects that make "loading context some AH manager just blew out my brain" more difficult.

suzzer99 3y ago

I'm the opposite. I have ADHD and I function much better with meetings, talking it out with other programmers, and the cacophony of noise from an open office. Everything distracts me anyway, so I'd rather it be work stuff than my own thoughts about some awkward moment I had in 1995.

hirvi74 3y ago
It's probably because this is not an ADHD issue, but just a difference amongst individuals. I have ADHD and meetings do not really seem to impact my functions other than increasing urgency because I have Total Time - Meeting Time left to do whatever task..