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I strongly disagree that developers should stop whatever they're doing just to do any 2-minute task that comes up. This would be a huge distraction. When you're

I strongly disagree that developers should stop whatever they're doing just to do any 2-minute task that comes up. This would be a huge distraction. When you're a developer, you need long chunks of quiet time to focus on your project. Constantly interrupting that focus to do 2-minute tasks is a sure way to make sure you can never get "in the zone" and concentrate on anything. Personally, unless a 2-minute task is time-sensitive, I let a bunch of them pile up, then take 30 minutes or so to do them all at once.

gnok 15y ago
Agreed. One of my worst productivity killers at work is the "hey, could you do this little thing? I know it'll only take you two minutes" type of request. It might only take two minutes to do, but it's also just botched a nice hour long flow with the context switch.
rollypolly 15y ago
That's a much better approach. Another one I like is to save my small tasks for the next morning. It helps get my day going by achieving lots of small goals.