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Ask HN: How to deal with constant interruptions at work (with ADHD)

What are some strategies that have worked for you? I find new input in slack more stimulating than my difficult tasks at hand. Going offline on slack is probably not an option.

ravenstine 3y ago
- Ignore your inbox: Unless you're in a support role, most company emails are not as critical as you might think. All of that noise between blathering newsletters, GitHub notifications, calendar events, various service updates, and alerts from failed CI jobs are mere distractions. You can configure your mail to filter these out or, like I do, not bother checking them for days. If something's actually important, you'll probably find out on Slack. - Unless someone is coming to you with an urgent ask, either delay getting back to them or just tell them that you need heads-down time right now. - Pause notifications in Slack. On top of this, add your phone number to your Slack profile and make it clear to everyone that they can still reach you if everything's on fire. - Mute most of the Slack channels you feel obligated to join. Why companies and even individual employees believe that more channels is better, I have no clue. Complete waste of time. - Invent reasons to skip your daily standup. Even a 15 minute interruption can disrupt you from being in your zone. Screw these lame ass status update meetings in disguise. - Just say no to pair programming if you're in a flow, unless the other person needs urgent help. - If you work in an office, find a hallway or room deep in the bowels of the office building where no one seems to go and do your work there. There was an office I worked at once where there was a concrete hallway way in the bottom corner of the building where almost nobody went but it had a treadmill desk, so I worked down there a lot in peace. Some lady eventually figured out I was doing this and started spreading rumors that I was creepy or that I had quit. Just ignore idiots like this if that happens. That office environment was loud. - Observe what area of the office floor is the least noisy (and possibly furthest away from your interrupt-happy team members) and ask management if you can switch to a desk over there. - Recognize when being distracted isn't a bad thing. Everyone's mileage may vary, but personally, being ultra-focused all the time made no impact on my career versus working diligently but not punishing myself if I felt like stepping away from work for a while. Time spent at the keyboard doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with productivity in tech. Above all, you're not a cog.
- digitalsushi 3y ago
  As tech lead on my team, I ask them to make it to standup and I'll forgive any other absence. It's 15 minutes, we time box it so we just hang up on second 900 if we even make it that long. My team won't update ticket comments, they wont read emails, they won't read Teams channel questions directed at them. I try to keep these things at a minimum so that I can't be accused of making a point about over-stimulation - I get it. But if they start to skip standup, the one time each day I can ask them where the hell one of my things I need is, then I have no reliable connection to them at all. And I'm not a boss so all I can do is beg.
  - ravenstine 3y ago
    I concede that an individual's response should also be within some amount of reason in a given context. If your team isn't responding to anything in a reasonable amount of time, that's a serious problem. To me, ticket status and Teams channel questions are way more important than the vast majority of emails or standups. However, in your situation, there's some benefit (mainly to you) to standups. You're in a tough position, it sounds. You're a lead, yet likely restricted to leading technology and not so much people. I don't know what your leadership style is, but I've noticed some people are treated like bosses for merely acting the part, so that's something to consider. Also, what I meant to say was that a person should skip standup if it actually benefits their productivity. They should show up to some standups, perhaps most. Hypothetically, standups could be done well, but I don't usually experience this. I don't think people should never show up to team rituals.
  - gtirloni 3y ago
    > And I'm not a boss so all I can do is beg. There must be an interesting story that explains why companies everywhere created the powerless tech lead position separate from manager. The tech lead is stuck in an impossible situation, apparently.
    - neonlights84 3y ago
      Having previously been in a project lead position, I've wondered about this myself. It's downright impossible to get a team to follow a project plan when you have no management authority over them. You can report the facts to their managers, but sometimes the managers don't care and there is no recourse.
adamredwoods 3y ago
Mark on your calendar "heads down" time for 2-hours sprints. People might respect it but you may also have to disconnect.
ssss11 3y ago
Headphones. People think you’re busy and avoid interrupting you physically. Block your calendar to stop virtual interruptions.
coder4life 3y ago
Headphones blasting no music, with earplugs in. I tried (and was successful) for years with gun mufflers with earplugs, but I got into a company where some salespeople couldn't get the message, so the switch to headphones over earplugs. It's the next best thing to a strong ADD med :) Also, considering your seemingly constant barrage, the pomodoro method (easily googled)
d--b 3y ago
Talk to your manager: "find me a way not to be interrupted all the time, or multiply my delivery time by 2, as you wish". Turning slack off is totally an option.
- wkjagt 3y ago
  Maybe phrase it more like you’re actively discussing a problem with them instead of making it sound like an ultimatum, but I agree that talking to your manager about this is a good idea. The managers I’ve had have always been fine human beings that cared about my well being as much as my productivity, and OP’s problems include both of these aspects.
otras 3y ago
My usual recommendation is to be deliberate about time you’re setting aside for focusing. Like others said, a combination of blocked time on your calendar, closing Slack and email, a Pomodoro timer, and music (or white noise) through noise canceling headphones. > Going offline on slack is probably not an option. Out of curiosity, what makes you say this? What would happen if you were to close slack for an hour?
cpach 3y ago
Leave channels that you’re not required to be in. For some channels it can be enough to disable notifications. (They will still be bold in the channel list when there are new messages.) Going offline from Slack for 1-2 hours a day might not be impossible? That’s a start. Try it and then evaluate after a week or two.
AussieWog93 3y ago
If you have a Mac, the full screen mode with virtual desktops is fantastic. i3wm achieves something similar on Linux.
sureglymop 3y ago
To go offline in slack should be an option. Talk to your manager or someone at the company. You have a disability, there must be accommodations. What I do is keep any chat and such closed and only accept e-mail. I then have two set times a day where I check it by going through the mailbox. There should be no argument that you can't do this unless you're employed to be always on-call and need to be responsive in 5 minutes. Make sure to generate a paper trail when asking.
- cpach 3y ago
  IMO being offline from Slack from time to time should be an option for all employees.
  - gtirloni 3y ago
    Being offline doesn't help with distractions. People will send messages anyway and that red dot will be there. This is a long standing issue with Slack, you can't silence it completely. Even muting channels doesn't help, you will get a notification or the red dot anyway. The only way is to go nuclear: uninstall it from your phone and close the desktop app. But that isn't doable in most companies.
- bodiekane 3y ago
  Depends on the role and company. A big company can probably tolerate a couple non-team-player developers who just execute on tasks they're given in isolation, but most of the time software engineering is a team activity and being unresponsive to teammates is going to block them from getting their work done. I'd rather have one developer take a hit to their productivity to answer a coworkers questions and keep the whole team moving forward than have the team blocked so that one employee can complete their ticket in a single uninterrupted block.
robwg 3y ago
My setup requires multiple monitors. Having at least 2 monitors then a laptop on the side. Turn all notification sound off and make sure the slack red dot stays on laptop screen, on the edge of your peripherals. While focusing on work it will be harder to notice the red dot but won't be turned off. Music helps when it's hard to focus, I prefer some genre of instrumentals.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Turn all notification sound off This is key for me. Not just the sound (since I keep the audio muted across the board anyway), but turning all notifications off entirely and keeping them that way. I mean all notifications, not just comms-related ones. Then you can use little dots to see if someone needs you in a comms and periodically check things manually when you're in a spot where that's not disruptive. Notifications are one of the worst things ever.
kulhur 3y ago
You can set DND for a limited time, check the slash commands in this article. https://slack.com/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notifications-with-Do-Not-Disturb https://slack.com/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notification...
- thelastparadise 3y ago
  > DND for a limited time, Limited time? Who thought that was a good idea?
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    You can put yourself on DND for up to a year. At the risk of "640K ought to be enough for everybody", I'd say that's probably long enough.
  - therealfiona 3y ago
    It is actually super awesome. Makes Slack notifications optional for that period of time.
nefrix 3y ago
I think there isn’t a miracle solution for increasing the focus. Is like a muscle you want to make it stronger. It needs lots of discipline and practice. This is a list of things I’ve done on and off for the last 2 years and feel like it improved my focus. - get rid of possible distractions (phone-turned off all the notifications) - read books constantly (I made a rule to read at least 1 page a day) - meditation - morning pages (is more like a journaling, but continuous flux of thoughts written on 3 letter pages every morning) The morning pages I think helped me the most not only for my focus, but also for my mental wellbeing.
sokoloff 3y ago
> Going offline on slack is probably not an option. Unless you're in a support role and actively on-call for coverage for a period of time, I think I would revisit this assumption and be sure you collapse the "probably" to something more definitive. If you're in a more typical development role, turning off Slack for periods of time is probably an option. Talk to your manager, describe the problem you're facing, your proposal to trial going off Slack for 2 hours (or whatever) at a time, and see what they think.
- thelastparadise 3y ago
  > trial going off Slack for 2 hours Ironic it is called Slack, and we are more productive when not "Slacking off."
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Slack: off => Individual Productivity: up.
- cpach 3y ago
  “Talk to your manager, describe the problem you're facing, your proposal to trial going off Slack for 2 hours (or whatever) at a time, and see what they think.” Depends on the role and the org I guess, but for me I just mute notifications and then close the Slack app whenever I need to focus. (Mute so that the phone app won’t start spamming me after I’ve closed the Desktop app.)
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Totally agreed on "just do it" for most people, roles, and orgs. I was taking the cue from OP's post that they thought that was "probably not an option" so I suggested they clarify as they seemed unwilling to "just do it".
halz 3y ago
I replaced the Slack client with wee-slack [https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack]. It brings a much more "zen" experience to using Slack and better compliments my keyboard-centric desktop/workflow (e.g. clear all unread channel notifications? keybind! Jump between all the high priority/@mentioned notifications? keybind!) It also helps if you're expected to be available via Slack, since it can keep you showing "green" while you've actually been ignoring it.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  This is amazing, thanks for sharing. Does it show up as an integration in Slack or is it mostly transparent? Some companies don't allow a bunch of apps in Slack.
kgbcia 3y ago
Remove stimuli. If it's noise, use headphones and earplugs. If it's people, face your computer away from them. If it's inbox, increase update or retrieval time. You have the solutions.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Remove stimuli. If it's noise, use headphones and earplugs. If it's people, face your computer away from them Excellent advice for many, but those don't work for everybody. Doing those things increases my anxiety quite a lot and reduces my ability to work even more.
g4zj 3y ago
I'm autistic, and quickly become very frustrated by distracting sounds and unexpected or unproductive interruptions. Unfortunately, this is a "me" problem, and I've found that I'm the only one interested in solving it. After years of carefully managing/challenging expectations of me, here's what my work situation looks like today. - I work 100% remotely. If I go into the office, I will only be interrupted constantly, dragged into meetings, etc. - My Teams status is set to "offline" at all times, with notifications disabled. No exceptions. I check Teams messages between tasks, before/after lunch, and at the end of the work day. - Unproductive Teams messages, like impromptu requests for status updates, questions which have well-documented answers, or that I've answered directly on multiple recent occasions, are completely ignored. - All work requests which are not submitted via official channels are ignored. The remainder are addressed only if they are submitted, or assigned, directly by my manager. I completely ignore all other work requests. - I've created dozens of mail rules to filter out almost all of the noise in my inbox, including the company newsletter, timesheet reminders, office-specific messages (bagels in the lunch room!?!), etc. I know I'm a pain in the ass, but at least my sanity is stable after years of overwhelming frustration while trying to effect even the slightest change in others.
- cpach 3y ago
  IMHO, this seems very reasonable.
  - meiraleal 3y ago
    Only if his expertise is highly relevant and beneficial to the company
    - happytiger 3y ago
      It’s weird that an employee who opts out of noise specifically for productive work gets this treatment. Some of the most incredible programmers I’ve had the pleasure of working with were just like this, and I felt like it was my job as their boss to help them keep it that way. There’s a bias for visibility and not actual work that I think makes it really difficult for those on the spectrum or who have adhd or just difficulty refocusing after getting interrupted have to deal with that doesn’t get a lot of support in the modern workplace. To boot, this culture drives type-a, need to talk face-to-face, achievement focused personalities absolutely crazy. I can’t tell you have many times I’ve had to say no to some over controlling stakeholder who “needs in person morning status updates” every day. It absolutely killed our code velocity when we tried it and the late night crew thought they were hitler.
coginthemachine 3y ago
Need to clarify why I think going completely offline is not an option. As tech lead I feel I should be available for my team.
JohnFen 3y ago
In my younger, crazier days when I was OK with giving up work/life balance, I dealt with this by not really trying to get things done in the office (by which I mean not bothering trying to reach or maintain flow state). Instead, I'd mostly warm my office chair and do my real work after hours at home. Now, though, I think "screw that". I want a life. So I just found a way to accept that working in an office environment means that I won't be able to do my best or most efficient work and don't worry about making up for it on my off time.
- albert_e 3y ago
  Sounds like me exactly. On days I go to office I focus on being present physically so my attendance is noted. The commute (1 hour each way through dust and traffic) tires me out and I don't get much done that day either work wise or on personal front and go to sleep tired and early. For remote work days I am able to take breaks in between and come back to desk when feeling productive and energetic. And I mix in some personal work during the day or office work till 8 or 9 PM as I feel like that day.
gensym 3y ago
Are you in the US? I recommend this article: https://www.additudemag.com/workplace-legal-protection/ https://www.additudemag.com/workplace-legal-protection/ If your ADHD is preventing you from working effectively, you have the legal right to reasonable accommodations (going offline on Slack may be one). Any decent engineering manager would be happy to work with you to find a way for you to work effectively, and the ADA gives them cover to make exceptions to company policy.
stcroixx 3y ago
I make sure by boss understands that if I'm expected to monitor and respond to slack all day long anything else I'm asked to do is going to take forever and I won't be able to commit to having any other work done by a particular date.
vasilireikh 3y ago
Quick heads up, I'm assuming you're not taking any meds—no judgment. On a personal note, I'm pretty sure I've got ADHD (still waiting on that official diagnosis). Sitting in front of a computer is a struggle for me, so I've switched things up by working standing upfront. Bonus: I bounce (back and forth) with the music, and it surprisingly does the trick! About five years ago, I penned a book about this quirky workstyle. If you're into music, maybe give it a shot: https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Work-Dance-EDM-Music/dp/1797894528 https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Work-Dance-EDM-Music/dp/179...
HanClinto 3y ago
Audio therapy is very helpful -- quiet brown noise in the background can be very helpful for assisting focus. This is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzGzwTY-6w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzGzwTY-6w
- Buttons840 3y ago
  As I approach 40 the tinitus is starting; not to bad though, knock on wood. I fear that the solution to a noisy office being "add more noise" will cause hearing damage.
  - NBJack 3y ago
    The proper approach IMHO is to reduce incoming noise then add some of your own to mask it. I'm not a big fan of audio canceling headphones (I'm one of those that finds the perceived 'pressure' distracting and disconcerting), but in-ear buds or headphones already block a lot. Foam tip earbuds are even mor effective. Add some quiet brown noise to mask what's left, and you should be good.
- Wojtkie 3y ago
  I work in an open floor plan with music on in the background. I find it immensely distracting but 80% of my office are basically hourly phone support staff. I'd find that job so monotonous that I empathize with them wanting music. My solution was a pair of noise cancelling headphones and either really ambient music or brown noise like you mentioned. I've found it to be very effective with helping maintaining deep focus.
shahbaby 3y ago
Meds helped me a lot. An alternative which is almost as good is using a novel enviornment to enforce the desired behaviour. i.e Go to a coffee shop. But this stops working after a while. Also try using apps which block or limit you from distractions. Sure you could easily disable the blocker but that little bit of resistance is often enough.
tmaly 3y ago
Some of my inspiration came from the 4 Hour Work Week. I block out time when I look at email, jira, and messaging. From my own ideas, I do not schedule meetings first thing in the morning. I reserve that time to think and do strategic planning.
brudgers 3y ago
1. There are necessary interruptions and there are optional interruptions. Almost all electronic interruptions are optional. Put them in a dedicated browser identity, a dedicated email identity, a dedicated virtual machine, a dedicated physical machine, etc. 2. Flow is not a magical state. Work is how you get into flow. Work is how you recover from interruptions from a flow state. So just start doing something that needs to be done. 3. Drama is interesting. It is not work. Good luck.
achempion 3y ago
Check Slack & email on a schedule, leave a phone number for emergencies, wear headphones (possibly with noise cancellation), take quiet walks, and practice deep breathing. Make sure basics are covered first, like a consistent sleep schedule, etc.
therealfiona 3y ago
Mute non-priority channels. If it isn't a Prod alert, my team's private channel, or a customer-facing channel where they have been directed to in order to request help (Cloud DevOps team that does all the things, people constantly ask us for help with their work), it's muted. I've been using the "Hummus" notification for some years because the dings are triggering and hummus is yummy. But in the past couple of months, I leave my audio muted. "Lofi beats to study to" is actually a really great genre of music to put on in the background as it gives my brain stimulation but is not detracting. It can help me start getting focused on my task rather than looking for something interested in the muted channels. I don't look at email but a few times a day to hit the "delete" button and ponder how to make a rule to filter out the email I delete on a daily/weekly basis. Direct people who want your help to your team's public Slack channel. Do not help people in your DMs. This gives the whole team a chance to help and not put it all on you. We went further and the primary on-call person is responsible for being the first contact to our customers in our public channel. The idea is to make it so people not on-call don't get distracted. It's worked. Now, if you can get your customers to stop asking for help (For my team, this has come down to training them on the things we get repeat questions about, and directing them back to their own team to ask for help before coming to us), and get your team to quit asking for help, you'll be golden. Edit: Tell people to use threads. It helps reduce pings. Also tell people not to use @here. Send them an article about why not to use it. Also use passive-aggressive emojis like :pingsock: when they continue to do it in channels with 900 people in them.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  > Also use passive-aggressive emojis like :pingsock: when they continue to do it in channels with 900 people in them. Your comment contains good advice but not this. If you want to say something to the person, say it. Being passive-aggressive will make people ignore you, not stop the behavior you want to change. It's not productive.
  - therealfiona 3y ago
    Of course. I thought people would pick up on the humor about exactly what not to do.
justanotherjoe 3y ago
for me, its about getting into the task as instantly as possible... Say im returning from the toilet, i sit on my desk, open code editor, and code the next thing, all in like 2 seconds. Being adhd for me actually means i can get in to the zone TOO quickly. But that usually means the zone of music or other white noise at youtube. The wrong sequence would be like sit down at desk, open youtube to set music/white noise, open editor, check slack, get into the code cause you are already in the youtube zone.
rich_sasha 3y ago
I write my to-do list for the day on the previous day just before I go home. Then, as soon as I come in, I have an unambiguous list of things to do, one by one, and I commit to not deviating from the list, unless the world is on fire. That makes it easier for me to ignore Slack, but even if not, I'll see messages come in, and unless they sound like fire, I go back to my list. Not sure if helps, but I found it quite helpful.
nicbou 3y ago
I'm self-employed now, but back in the office I'd use a mix of different tricks: - Aggressively filter incoming email. Leave most group conversations. - Turn off instant messaging, check it every hour or so. - Aggressively avoid meetings. Leave meetings when you no longer need to be there. - Work from home more. Work from quiet parts of the office.
dileeparanawake 3y ago
absolutely, constant messaging interruptions are terrible. Solution is turn of messaging, hide my phone, and help my colleagues know that if they consider about the outcome / work I do they'll let me focus. It doesn't matter if they think that's unreasonable, it just is what it is, and it's important for me to communicate that. I have, ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism. Have worked in this field for a long time. The problem is not the tech. It's the social expectation and that needs to change to enable people who are neurodiverse. Because normies do things, they need to understand, other people rock it, when they do different, because we are different.
- dileeparanawake 3y ago
  this field means neurodiversity technology / assistive tech. Obviously I distracted myself, before I completed that thought

What are some strategies that have worked for you? I find new input in slack more stimulating than my difficult tasks at hand. Going offline on slack is probably not an option.

ravenstine 3y ago

- Ignore your inbox: Unless you're in a support role, most company emails are not as critical as you might think. All of that noise between blathering newsletters, GitHub notifications, calendar events, various service updates, and alerts from failed CI jobs are mere distractions. You can configure your mail to filter these out or, like I do, not bother checking them for days. If something's actually important, you'll probably find out on Slack. - Unless someone is coming to you with an urgent ask, either delay getting back to them or just tell them that you need heads-down time right now. - Pause notifications in Slack. On top of this, add your phone number to your Slack profile and make it clear to everyone that they can still reach you if everything's on fire. - Mute most of the Slack channels you feel obligated to join. Why companies and even individual employees believe that more channels is better, I have no clue. Complete waste of time. - Invent reasons to skip your daily standup. Even a 15 minute interruption can disrupt you from being in your zone. Screw these lame ass status update meetings in disguise. - Just say no to pair programming if you're in a flow, unless the other person needs urgent help. - If you work in an office, find a hallway or room deep in the bowels of the office building where no one seems to go and do your work there. There was an office I worked at once where there was a concrete hallway way in the bottom corner of the building where almost nobody went but it had a treadmill desk, so I worked down there a lot in peace. Some lady eventually figured out I was doing this and started spreading rumors that I was creepy or that I had quit. Just ignore idiots like this if that happens. That office environment was loud. - Observe what area of the office floor is the least noisy (and possibly furthest away from your interrupt-happy team members) and ask management if you can switch to a desk over there. - Recognize when being distracted isn't a bad thing. Everyone's mileage may vary, but personally, being ultra-focused all the time made no impact on my career versus working diligently but not punishing myself if I felt like stepping away from work for a while. Time spent at the keyboard doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with productivity in tech. Above all, you're not a cog.

digitalsushi 3y ago
As tech lead on my team, I ask them to make it to standup and I'll forgive any other absence. It's 15 minutes, we time box it so we just hang up on second 900 if we even make it that long. My team won't update ticket comments, they wont read emails, they won't read Teams channel questions directed at them. I try to keep these things at a minimum so that I can't be accused of making a point about over-stimulation - I get it. But if they start to skip standup, the one time each day I can ask them where the hell one of my things I need is, then I have no reliable connection to them at all. And I'm not a boss so all I can do is beg.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  I concede that an individual's response should also be within some amount of reason in a given context. If your team isn't responding to anything in a reasonable amount of time, that's a serious problem. To me, ticket status and Teams channel questions are way more important than the vast majority of emails or standups. However, in your situation, there's some benefit (mainly to you) to standups. You're in a tough position, it sounds. You're a lead, yet likely restricted to leading technology and not so much people. I don't know what your leadership style is, but I've noticed some people are treated like bosses for merely acting the part, so that's something to consider. Also, what I meant to say was that a person should skip standup if it actually benefits their productivity. They should show up to some standups, perhaps most. Hypothetically, standups could be done well, but I don't usually experience this. I don't think people should never show up to team rituals.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  > And I'm not a boss so all I can do is beg. There must be an interesting story that explains why companies everywhere created the powerless tech lead position separate from manager. The tech lead is stuck in an impossible situation, apparently.
  - neonlights84 3y ago
    Having previously been in a project lead position, I've wondered about this myself. It's downright impossible to get a team to follow a project plan when you have no management authority over them. You can report the facts to their managers, but sometimes the managers don't care and there is no recourse.

adamredwoods 3y ago

Mark on your calendar "heads down" time for 2-hours sprints. People might respect it but you may also have to disconnect.

ssss11 3y ago

Headphones. People think you’re busy and avoid interrupting you physically. Block your calendar to stop virtual interruptions.

coder4life 3y ago

Headphones blasting no music, with earplugs in. I tried (and was successful) for years with gun mufflers with earplugs, but I got into a company where some salespeople couldn't get the message, so the switch to headphones over earplugs. It's the next best thing to a strong ADD med :) Also, considering your seemingly constant barrage, the pomodoro method (easily googled)

d--b 3y ago

Talk to your manager: "find me a way not to be interrupted all the time, or multiply my delivery time by 2, as you wish". Turning slack off is totally an option.

wkjagt 3y ago
Maybe phrase it more like you’re actively discussing a problem with them instead of making it sound like an ultimatum, but I agree that talking to your manager about this is a good idea. The managers I’ve had have always been fine human beings that cared about my well being as much as my productivity, and OP’s problems include both of these aspects.

otras 3y ago

My usual recommendation is to be deliberate about time you’re setting aside for focusing. Like others said, a combination of blocked time on your calendar, closing Slack and email, a Pomodoro timer, and music (or white noise) through noise canceling headphones. > Going offline on slack is probably not an option. Out of curiosity, what makes you say this? What would happen if you were to close slack for an hour?

cpach 3y ago

Leave channels that you’re not required to be in. For some channels it can be enough to disable notifications. (They will still be bold in the channel list when there are new messages.) Going offline from Slack for 1-2 hours a day might not be impossible? That’s a start. Try it and then evaluate after a week or two.

AussieWog93 3y ago

If you have a Mac, the full screen mode with virtual desktops is fantastic. i3wm achieves something similar on Linux.

sureglymop 3y ago

To go offline in slack should be an option. Talk to your manager or someone at the company. You have a disability, there must be accommodations. What I do is keep any chat and such closed and only accept e-mail. I then have two set times a day where I check it by going through the mailbox. There should be no argument that you can't do this unless you're employed to be always on-call and need to be responsive in 5 minutes. Make sure to generate a paper trail when asking.

cpach 3y ago
IMO being offline from Slack from time to time should be an option for all employees.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  Being offline doesn't help with distractions. People will send messages anyway and that red dot will be there. This is a long standing issue with Slack, you can't silence it completely. Even muting channels doesn't help, you will get a notification or the red dot anyway. The only way is to go nuclear: uninstall it from your phone and close the desktop app. But that isn't doable in most companies.
bodiekane 3y ago
Depends on the role and company. A big company can probably tolerate a couple non-team-player developers who just execute on tasks they're given in isolation, but most of the time software engineering is a team activity and being unresponsive to teammates is going to block them from getting their work done. I'd rather have one developer take a hit to their productivity to answer a coworkers questions and keep the whole team moving forward than have the team blocked so that one employee can complete their ticket in a single uninterrupted block.

robwg 3y ago

My setup requires multiple monitors. Having at least 2 monitors then a laptop on the side. Turn all notification sound off and make sure the slack red dot stays on laptop screen, on the edge of your peripherals. While focusing on work it will be harder to notice the red dot but won't be turned off. Music helps when it's hard to focus, I prefer some genre of instrumentals.

JohnFen 3y ago
> Turn all notification sound off This is key for me. Not just the sound (since I keep the audio muted across the board anyway), but turning all notifications off entirely and keeping them that way. I mean all notifications, not just comms-related ones. Then you can use little dots to see if someone needs you in a comms and periodically check things manually when you're in a spot where that's not disruptive. Notifications are one of the worst things ever.

kulhur 3y ago

You can set DND for a limited time, check the slash commands in this article. https://slack.com/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notifications-with-Do-Not-Disturb https://slack.com/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notification...

thelastparadise 3y ago
> DND for a limited time, Limited time? Who thought that was a good idea?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  You can put yourself on DND for up to a year. At the risk of "640K ought to be enough for everybody", I'd say that's probably long enough.
- therealfiona 3y ago
  It is actually super awesome. Makes Slack notifications optional for that period of time.

nefrix 3y ago

I think there isn’t a miracle solution for increasing the focus. Is like a muscle you want to make it stronger. It needs lots of discipline and practice. This is a list of things I’ve done on and off for the last 2 years and feel like it improved my focus. - get rid of possible distractions (phone-turned off all the notifications) - read books constantly (I made a rule to read at least 1 page a day) - meditation - morning pages (is more like a journaling, but continuous flux of thoughts written on 3 letter pages every morning) The morning pages I think helped me the most not only for my focus, but also for my mental wellbeing.

sokoloff 3y ago

> Going offline on slack is probably not an option. Unless you're in a support role and actively on-call for coverage for a period of time, I think I would revisit this assumption and be sure you collapse the "probably" to something more definitive. If you're in a more typical development role, turning off Slack for periods of time is probably an option. Talk to your manager, describe the problem you're facing, your proposal to trial going off Slack for 2 hours (or whatever) at a time, and see what they think.

thelastparadise 3y ago
> trial going off Slack for 2 hours Ironic it is called Slack, and we are more productive when not "Slacking off."
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Slack: off => Individual Productivity: up.
cpach 3y ago
“Talk to your manager, describe the problem you're facing, your proposal to trial going off Slack for 2 hours (or whatever) at a time, and see what they think.” Depends on the role and the org I guess, but for me I just mute notifications and then close the Slack app whenever I need to focus. (Mute so that the phone app won’t start spamming me after I’ve closed the Desktop app.)
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Totally agreed on "just do it" for most people, roles, and orgs. I was taking the cue from OP's post that they thought that was "probably not an option" so I suggested they clarify as they seemed unwilling to "just do it".

halz 3y ago

I replaced the Slack client with wee-slack [https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack]. It brings a much more "zen" experience to using Slack and better compliments my keyboard-centric desktop/workflow (e.g. clear all unread channel notifications? keybind! Jump between all the high priority/@mentioned notifications? keybind!) It also helps if you're expected to be available via Slack, since it can keep you showing "green" while you've actually been ignoring it.

gtirloni 3y ago
This is amazing, thanks for sharing. Does it show up as an integration in Slack or is it mostly transparent? Some companies don't allow a bunch of apps in Slack.

kgbcia 3y ago

Remove stimuli. If it's noise, use headphones and earplugs. If it's people, face your computer away from them. If it's inbox, increase update or retrieval time. You have the solutions.

JohnFen 3y ago
> Remove stimuli. If it's noise, use headphones and earplugs. If it's people, face your computer away from them Excellent advice for many, but those don't work for everybody. Doing those things increases my anxiety quite a lot and reduces my ability to work even more.

g4zj 3y ago

I'm autistic, and quickly become very frustrated by distracting sounds and unexpected or unproductive interruptions. Unfortunately, this is a "me" problem, and I've found that I'm the only one interested in solving it. After years of carefully managing/challenging expectations of me, here's what my work situation looks like today. - I work 100% remotely. If I go into the office, I will only be interrupted constantly, dragged into meetings, etc. - My Teams status is set to "offline" at all times, with notifications disabled. No exceptions. I check Teams messages between tasks, before/after lunch, and at the end of the work day. - Unproductive Teams messages, like impromptu requests for status updates, questions which have well-documented answers, or that I've answered directly on multiple recent occasions, are completely ignored. - All work requests which are not submitted via official channels are ignored. The remainder are addressed only if they are submitted, or assigned, directly by my manager. I completely ignore all other work requests. - I've created dozens of mail rules to filter out almost all of the noise in my inbox, including the company newsletter, timesheet reminders, office-specific messages (bagels in the lunch room!?!), etc. I know I'm a pain in the ass, but at least my sanity is stable after years of overwhelming frustration while trying to effect even the slightest change in others.

cpach 3y ago
IMHO, this seems very reasonable.
- meiraleal 3y ago
  Only if his expertise is highly relevant and beneficial to the company
  - happytiger 3y ago
    It’s weird that an employee who opts out of noise specifically for productive work gets this treatment. Some of the most incredible programmers I’ve had the pleasure of working with were just like this, and I felt like it was my job as their boss to help them keep it that way. There’s a bias for visibility and not actual work that I think makes it really difficult for those on the spectrum or who have adhd or just difficulty refocusing after getting interrupted have to deal with that doesn’t get a lot of support in the modern workplace. To boot, this culture drives type-a, need to talk face-to-face, achievement focused personalities absolutely crazy. I can’t tell you have many times I’ve had to say no to some over controlling stakeholder who “needs in person morning status updates” every day. It absolutely killed our code velocity when we tried it and the late night crew thought they were hitler.

coginthemachine 3y ago

Need to clarify why I think going completely offline is not an option. As tech lead I feel I should be available for my team.

JohnFen 3y ago

In my younger, crazier days when I was OK with giving up work/life balance, I dealt with this by not really trying to get things done in the office (by which I mean not bothering trying to reach or maintain flow state). Instead, I'd mostly warm my office chair and do my real work after hours at home. Now, though, I think "screw that". I want a life. So I just found a way to accept that working in an office environment means that I won't be able to do my best or most efficient work and don't worry about making up for it on my off time.

albert_e 3y ago
Sounds like me exactly. On days I go to office I focus on being present physically so my attendance is noted. The commute (1 hour each way through dust and traffic) tires me out and I don't get much done that day either work wise or on personal front and go to sleep tired and early. For remote work days I am able to take breaks in between and come back to desk when feeling productive and energetic. And I mix in some personal work during the day or office work till 8 or 9 PM as I feel like that day.

gensym 3y ago

Are you in the US? I recommend this article: https://www.additudemag.com/workplace-legal-protection/ https://www.additudemag.com/workplace-legal-protection/ If your ADHD is preventing you from working effectively, you have the legal right to reasonable accommodations (going offline on Slack may be one). Any decent engineering manager would be happy to work with you to find a way for you to work effectively, and the ADA gives them cover to make exceptions to company policy.

stcroixx 3y ago

I make sure by boss understands that if I'm expected to monitor and respond to slack all day long anything else I'm asked to do is going to take forever and I won't be able to commit to having any other work done by a particular date.

vasilireikh 3y ago

Quick heads up, I'm assuming you're not taking any meds—no judgment. On a personal note, I'm pretty sure I've got ADHD (still waiting on that official diagnosis). Sitting in front of a computer is a struggle for me, so I've switched things up by working standing upfront. Bonus: I bounce (back and forth) with the music, and it surprisingly does the trick! About five years ago, I penned a book about this quirky workstyle. If you're into music, maybe give it a shot: https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Work-Dance-EDM-Music/dp/1797894528 https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Work-Dance-EDM-Music/dp/179...

HanClinto 3y ago

Audio therapy is very helpful -- quiet brown noise in the background can be very helpful for assisting focus. This is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzGzwTY-6w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzGzwTY-6w

Buttons840 3y ago
As I approach 40 the tinitus is starting; not to bad though, knock on wood. I fear that the solution to a noisy office being "add more noise" will cause hearing damage.
- NBJack 3y ago
  The proper approach IMHO is to reduce incoming noise then add some of your own to mask it. I'm not a big fan of audio canceling headphones (I'm one of those that finds the perceived 'pressure' distracting and disconcerting), but in-ear buds or headphones already block a lot. Foam tip earbuds are even mor effective. Add some quiet brown noise to mask what's left, and you should be good.
Wojtkie 3y ago
I work in an open floor plan with music on in the background. I find it immensely distracting but 80% of my office are basically hourly phone support staff. I'd find that job so monotonous that I empathize with them wanting music. My solution was a pair of noise cancelling headphones and either really ambient music or brown noise like you mentioned. I've found it to be very effective with helping maintaining deep focus.

shahbaby 3y ago

Meds helped me a lot. An alternative which is almost as good is using a novel enviornment to enforce the desired behaviour. i.e Go to a coffee shop. But this stops working after a while. Also try using apps which block or limit you from distractions. Sure you could easily disable the blocker but that little bit of resistance is often enough.

tmaly 3y ago

Some of my inspiration came from the 4 Hour Work Week. I block out time when I look at email, jira, and messaging. From my own ideas, I do not schedule meetings first thing in the morning. I reserve that time to think and do strategic planning.

brudgers 3y ago

1. There are necessary interruptions and there are optional interruptions. Almost all electronic interruptions are optional. Put them in a dedicated browser identity, a dedicated email identity, a dedicated virtual machine, a dedicated physical machine, etc. 2. Flow is not a magical state. Work is how you get into flow. Work is how you recover from interruptions from a flow state. So just start doing something that needs to be done. 3. Drama is interesting. It is not work. Good luck.

achempion 3y ago

Check Slack & email on a schedule, leave a phone number for emergencies, wear headphones (possibly with noise cancellation), take quiet walks, and practice deep breathing. Make sure basics are covered first, like a consistent sleep schedule, etc.

therealfiona 3y ago

Mute non-priority channels. If it isn't a Prod alert, my team's private channel, or a customer-facing channel where they have been directed to in order to request help (Cloud DevOps team that does all the things, people constantly ask us for help with their work), it's muted. I've been using the "Hummus" notification for some years because the dings are triggering and hummus is yummy. But in the past couple of months, I leave my audio muted. "Lofi beats to study to" is actually a really great genre of music to put on in the background as it gives my brain stimulation but is not detracting. It can help me start getting focused on my task rather than looking for something interested in the muted channels. I don't look at email but a few times a day to hit the "delete" button and ponder how to make a rule to filter out the email I delete on a daily/weekly basis. Direct people who want your help to your team's public Slack channel. Do not help people in your DMs. This gives the whole team a chance to help and not put it all on you. We went further and the primary on-call person is responsible for being the first contact to our customers in our public channel. The idea is to make it so people not on-call don't get distracted. It's worked. Now, if you can get your customers to stop asking for help (For my team, this has come down to training them on the things we get repeat questions about, and directing them back to their own team to ask for help before coming to us), and get your team to quit asking for help, you'll be golden. Edit: Tell people to use threads. It helps reduce pings. Also tell people not to use @here. Send them an article about why not to use it. Also use passive-aggressive emojis like :pingsock: when they continue to do it in channels with 900 people in them.

gtirloni 3y ago
> Also use passive-aggressive emojis like :pingsock: when they continue to do it in channels with 900 people in them. Your comment contains good advice but not this. If you want to say something to the person, say it. Being passive-aggressive will make people ignore you, not stop the behavior you want to change. It's not productive.
- therealfiona 3y ago
  Of course. I thought people would pick up on the humor about exactly what not to do.

justanotherjoe 3y ago

for me, its about getting into the task as instantly as possible... Say im returning from the toilet, i sit on my desk, open code editor, and code the next thing, all in like 2 seconds. Being adhd for me actually means i can get in to the zone TOO quickly. But that usually means the zone of music or other white noise at youtube. The wrong sequence would be like sit down at desk, open youtube to set music/white noise, open editor, check slack, get into the code cause you are already in the youtube zone.

rich_sasha 3y ago

I write my to-do list for the day on the previous day just before I go home. Then, as soon as I come in, I have an unambiguous list of things to do, one by one, and I commit to not deviating from the list, unless the world is on fire. That makes it easier for me to ignore Slack, but even if not, I'll see messages come in, and unless they sound like fire, I go back to my list. Not sure if helps, but I found it quite helpful.

nicbou 3y ago

I'm self-employed now, but back in the office I'd use a mix of different tricks: - Aggressively filter incoming email. Leave most group conversations. - Turn off instant messaging, check it every hour or so. - Aggressively avoid meetings. Leave meetings when you no longer need to be there. - Work from home more. Work from quiet parts of the office.

dileeparanawake 3y ago

absolutely, constant messaging interruptions are terrible. Solution is turn of messaging, hide my phone, and help my colleagues know that if they consider about the outcome / work I do they'll let me focus. It doesn't matter if they think that's unreasonable, it just is what it is, and it's important for me to communicate that. I have, ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism. Have worked in this field for a long time. The problem is not the tech. It's the social expectation and that needs to change to enable people who are neurodiverse. Because normies do things, they need to understand, other people rock it, when they do different, because we are different.

dileeparanawake 3y ago
this field means neurodiversity technology / assistive tech. Obviously I distracted myself, before I completed that thought