Ask HN: How do you cope with being interupted?

One is being interrupted, the other is being distracted. Being interrupted is external, while being distracted is internal.

So which one is it you're having problems with?

Personally, I have come to accept that there will be interruptions. Colleagues asking for help, someone asking a question, some boss calling an unexpected meeting, my mother phoning or whatever. Some of these you can avoid; like you could have a rule to always communicate meetings in advance. But at least a part of these will be unavoidable. How many depends on particular circumstances; e.g. being a senior engineer in a mostly junior group means you were specifically hired to be interrupted to a considerable extent.

One thing that sometimes helps me with interruptions is using 5-10 seconds. That is, when someone comes I just ask for 10 seconds, I make a gesture or simply say "10 seconds" or whatever, and then proceed to sort of "unload". I write down the precise point I am at and the exact upcoming action I was going to take.

On the matter of distractions, it depends a lot more on yourself and the success of anything you try will be very dependent on how you are.

In this front, one thing I do is scheduling. I want/need to do X... but I have to do Y now. So, I slot it into an appropriate time. e.g. "This weekend I want to make progress on that personal project". So "this weekend". This means: a. not now, and b. I have sort of secured a time for it, I don't have to worry about it because it has an assigned place.

Again, in this area what works for others may not work for you. But also, as someone has already mentioned, if you can't manage to learn how to do this on your own, reaching out to a therapist or other professional help is a valid solution. They may provide more specific tools and techniques.

That’s just BAD therapist, whom you can leave right away without a privilege of explanation. It’s hard to find a good one, but when you find em, your mind will “shit bricks”.

My (experience-based) way to detect a good one:

They can prescribe. That means they are a real doctor and not a “great courses plus grad”. If they work with drug addicts, good.

They only ask, never theorize, nor criticize, nor give a “dad lecture”. They ask, listen, note key points, rephrase and ask if they got it right. Then they ask you a question about the above, which is both perplexing and obvious at the same time. This is the moment when you realize there is a effing wrong pattern in your mind that you weren’t even aware of. Then, often the resolve is just a matter of understanding the issue and being aware of it for a week/month or so. If that doesn’t help, e.g. you now see the issue daily, but can’t help but feel emotion pressure, they give you an algorithmic method or a medication.

They always go from your issue you came in with down to basic mind patterns and emotions, small step by small step, with your affirmation, and do not jump into conjectures straight away, which you can’t even evaluate logically and emotionally.

They clearly explain their methods, if you ask them, or by themselves. It’s not a black magic neither a brain surgery, therapy is a thing you may do yourself, but sometimes you need a mind different than yours to mirror your findings.

There are 10+ charlatans per one therapist.

I would appreciate if someone with a similar experience added/fixed my list, or taught me of why sometimes they behave differently and that still ought to work.

(I had to switch recently because my best doc took a long break for an educational mission. And I can’t blame him, it is a pure necessity.)

I found it incredibly helpful, what I thought were my issues turned out to be symptoms of a more foundational issue and understanding that gave great insight into why I do things the way I do.

Run a mile from anyone practicing Freudian nonsense.

When I have an idea or thought that might interrupt, I write it down quickly on an ideas board or my notes for later and discard the thought.

When I get tired I sleep. When I'm working on something I am in a flow state. When I feel myself leaving a flow state (or bored?) I take a break. Progress is unpredictable. There is no such thing as finished, only ongoing or back burner or dead.

Obviously I would like to be left alone while working, but I have handicapped and mentally ill people to care for my life is acutely interrupt-driven. My work is immensely enjoyable so I can recover pretty fast most of the time.

In the days I did work in an office, I found that I got an enormous amount of work done on evenings, weekends, or very early mornings. This required having a spouse who understood that work was important because it supported both of us.

I don't do this very often because I don't want to abuse it and I also want to be available for my co-workers. But at work, one need's balance and boundaries and it's OK to set them yourself.

- Disable all notifications by default. Emails, chats, phone, turn them all off. Very few things in life actually require immediate response. Try to setup, that only notifications for those come trough.

- Timebox everything. Instead of just starting doing something, define how much time you are going to spent on doing x (might be a task, fixing a bug, preparing an event, solution exploration, etc.). When the time is up, take a step back, revise your work and decide whether it is done. If not, define what is missing, its importance and the corresponding time box. This really helped me getting lost in rabbit holes.

- Try to work in a way that is more resilient to interruption, so that it can more easily be left aside and picked up later. E.g. only doing one thing at a time, breaking up tasks, planning the day in advance in the morning so scheduled meetings don't come as surprise, etc.

- Communicate and manage expectations. Whether co-workers, family, partner, if they interrupt you, they usually don't do so maliciously. But if their interactions with you bother you, you need to talk to them to find a solution. Just being grumpy about it won't help.

Also, efficiency is not everything. We are not computers that can just chug away on tasks infinitely. Any non trivial work, you won't be able to finish in one sitting. Some interruptions are inevitable and healthy and whatever methodology, you will lose some progress on the way and have to rework things. And it's also about priorities in live. Is the work-related, unfinished task really important / interesting enough to get stuck in your head outside of work hours? Maybe the problem is not getting interrupted, but ability to interrupt yourself and separate different aspects of live.

So the tasks/todos are rubber balls and its ok to drop them. And do not worry about losing them. If they are important they will bounce back at you. There are only a few balls that are made of glass.

My approach is to choose to not let these conversations slip. I do this by writing down whatever I need to on a piece of paper next to me. I find that because I'm working alone I don't get the feedback I need. By writing it down I can switch back, and this serves a purpose other than to simply not forget it. It allows the thought to continue and I don't get stuck. Maybe I write a list, maybe I write a task, maybe a diagram. Many times it's a question.

Because the internal dialogue flows better my other present at-hand work can resume sooner after the interruption. In the meantime, I'm having a debate on the side about whether it really is a better idea than what I'm doing, and it gives me room to consider things in a more reasonable way, without the pressure of mental logjamming.

I switch back and forth. Each time I am giving the proper focus needed.

Also, these are generally for me not troubling or repeatedly negative thoughts because in moments when those kind of thoughts are present I stop everything and it gets full attention to get resolved. The situation then is it's not so much a logjam but the river itself has run dry. Gotta get that figured out asap because it not only affects present ability to work but future as well.

Either that or just ignore the interruptions. Slack can be silenced, as can phones. No need to always tolerate them.

Overall, I don't engage with $JOB more than 8 hours on any given day and never on a weekend. It works for me, and my boss nor team have complained so far. I'm not sure how long the party will last, though.

Setting aside “helping” time and “focus” time is extremely useful if you can avoid meetings during your focus times; although it is also difficult for me to focus when I have something happening soon (meetings at end of focus time, etc)

1. In a work situation where I'm relatively senior, I've proactively communicated that I like minimally-interrupting notifications (email>slack>IRL). Even when someone taps me on the shoulder, they're a little sheepish about it, and I can request 30 seconds to jot down a note about where I left off. I also just feel more in control of the situation.

2. At home, I keep a note of the interruptions and talk to my wife about the overall issue after the 'crisis' has passed.

3. When I feel like I can't get something out of my head, I use Siri to write a reminder. I use https://rememberthemilk.com/ but almost anything will work. A poorly thought-out, awkward, run on sentence for the task title, and then if I have more thoughts bursting outof me, I can add those as notes over the course of the day. What's important to realize is that you'll have to 'groom' the task before you can actually do it, but getting it off your chest is priority #1, and if you're supposed to be mostly doing something els eyou won't have time for that in the moment.

More generally, it's all about insisting on 30 seconds to record some placeholder, even if it feels impolite to whoever is interrupting you. I'm 99.9% sure this will not get you fired, and it's worth whatever tiny annoyance it might give them - they should share the annoyance burden of the situation after all! In all likelihood, just having that shred of control will help you feel a ton better and potentially make people think twice about whether they need to tap you on the shoulder in the first place

I am not a fan of IM communication, if it’s required that I respond immediately, all the time. Most IM methods, these days, have a “go away and leave me alone” feature, but it has been my experience that many folks resent it, if you actually have the nerve to use them.

I use Slack in “bursts,” for technical communication. I’ll ignore it for hours, or even days (if I’m in The Zone on a tough issue), then have a half hour or so of intense communication.

I mostly prefer email.

Of course, as the opposite situation would be absolutely completely insane...

Then I spend those 5 minute capturing context. This makes it easier (not easy, but easier) to return to the task after the discussion.

Another good thing to do is limit chances to be interrupted. Sign out of slack, close your email. Check these once every few hours. Oftentimes someone will ping you then solve their own issue with further research.

The above answer the headline question, but the deeper one comes in your text. "How can I live in the present" is how I interpret that. I don't know how to answer that, but focusing on the shortness of time you have on this planet has helped me be more present.

So be kind, handle the interruption politely and happily, remind the interrupter that you're working and then take measures so that it is more difficult for you to be interrupted in the future.

My boss interrupted people all the time to spout nonsense that usually was not related to work. I quickly found out there was an extreme productivity differential when compared to my previous job.

The way I cope with being interrupted is by making it clear I don't want to be interrupted for no reason. If the issue persists, I tell my boss about my small network of recruiters. If the interruptions persist, I reach out to some of those recruiters, and get a contract somewhere else.

Over the years I have found that some corporate types are so far removed from reality, that they don't understand how many engineers actually want to get things done. Working remotely has been a blessing for my career.

without loosing progress?

I always write down both the plan and the progress. For strategic plans and sudden realizations I’m using personal Trello. For at-the-moment tactics I just have a piece of paper and few pens on my desk. Circles and text and arrows and notes, you know. And somewhere in the middle there is always TODO.txt or a variant of `grep -r "TODO\|FIXME\|XXX" .`. Which of the latter two I’m using depends on whether I want to draw a map and navigate it (research-mode) or to set a short-term plan (do-it-mode).

For upcoming events that depend on my action, I make sure to plan beforehand with the ios builtin reminder app and then fully rely on it. If these don’t depend on me (someone to arrive in a hour or maybe four), I just learned to not give a fuck until it happens with CBT, and then I spend a minute to write down all the relevant progress/action/situation info to pick up later.

If I don’t write it down, it’s not worth it, and vice versa.

More generally, if distractions are bothering you or are making you nervous, I would recommend meditation. Meditation is the practice of focussing on the present. Try the waking up app (https://wakingup.com/), it is a good reason-based introduction to the practice and theory of meditation.

For being interrupted by apps I generally invert control E.g. - Disable notifications and decide to check a few times a day instead

- Close apps when I’m focussing.

For being interrupted by humans - Make good use of a calendar and let people know my availability

- Use calendar to block of focussing time for tasks requiring periods of longer concentration

- Not be afraid to say I’m in the middle of something I’ll come find you in a bit unless it’s urgent when prodded physically.

- Changing my status message on instant messaging apps/web meeting apps to let people know I’m not always monitoring them (e.g. “I check for DM’s multiple times a day”) to set a level of expectation.

Before you consider the various answers offered here, consider that attention is the key executive function of consciousness, and the ability to marshall it is a core aspect of what we call “self”.

Everyone is different, in ways that we cannot always control, or even perceive.

When you consider other people’s methods, be aware that your attention mechanisms may work differently and respond differently, whether you like it and want it that way or not.

“Attention” is a hardware module that comes with no instruction booklet.

TLDR; I utilize TDD, the Pomodoro time technique, and I have crafted an internal story that I deal with distraction well.

I love my wife and want her to feel free to bug me anytime. I have set boundaries where something ideally should be a level more important to warrant an interruption, but I love her so she can interrupt whenever. I don’t want to be a curmudgeon about it, so I choose not to be.

I do let her know that when I am deep in thought, it takes me some dozens of seconds to come back to reality. She gives me some time and is patient enough to repeat what she said.

I use tests and notes as a way of exporting my deep thought into world artifacts. Developing testing as a skill is actually rather difficult as it brings to the surface software design, which I think many novice programmers miss. Once you have it, you can rerun your test/suite to reorient where you were once the distraction is complete.

Notes let me write down nagging or otherwise unrelated to task thoughts. We live in an age of distraction and we must adapt. I write down/tally when I have an impulse to distract myself to remind myself to stay on task.

Finally, I use the pomodoro time technique for time management. I usually do 30 minutes on, 10 minutes break. It is very freeing to know there will be time in the very near future to handle distractions and I personally find myself in focus mode faster using the technique.

And that’s what I’ve done to try and adapt. I used to be someone who told myself I don’t handle distractions well and therefore requires huge blocks of uninterrupted time, but it didn’t work out for me and how I want to be. YMMV.

Hope this helps OP!

The principle is simple: instead of trying to tell yourself "I'm going to focus on X until it's done", instead say "I'm going to work on X for Y minutes". You can experiment with what Y works for you. 20-30 minutes is a reasonable starting point.

During that time, remove potential distractions. No notifications, phone on silent, no distracting websites open (eg HN, reddit, whatever), no Discord, etc. Use a timer if that helps. I'd actually get a physical timer as this seems to be more tangible and removes the temptation of getting distracted by your phone.

After that time, give yourself 5 minutes to do whatever. HN, reddit, email, Twitter, it doesn't matter.

There's really no point in self-flagellation when it comes to distraction. Just try and work with it.

When I focus on an objective, I ensure my phone cannot be found. I turn off slack and the like - and I generally make it impossible to distract myself. I fight myself as much as I can, to live in the moment.

As for my works: I have permanently disabled notifications on my desktop. I read e-mail during specific windows, and the same with slack and the like. In office, with people is more difficult. But I generally work on getting teams to agree to 'zone time', ensuring that it's not my idea, but our shared goal.

Journaling helps you think. It makes you feel like someone is listening (I write those in a way that I am talking to someone, who is just there to listen, and not give feedback). I let everything out, it just feels better, and then I am able to focus more on the work. I am good at patterns, so I identify what makes me tick, what makes me focus, and then it's a matter of doing things which help you and avoid those which don't. Possibly a lot of iteration involved.

P.S. I have tried therapy, but the thing they tried to tell me was that everyone loves me, and people want me and value me in their life. My frustrations were never coming from that unresolved issue. I just felt helpless or nervous about lack of control over my activities, and journaling helped me get to that point, while therapy was useless.

I try to ensure there's as little relevant information as possible that's exclusively in my head.

This means I can recover from an interruption - "get back in flow" - much faster than if I kept everything in my head.

More importantly, it means I can have an order of magnitude more projects on the go at once. I sometimes return to an issue I first opened more than a year ago and can productively start working on it with just a few minutes of review of the previous comments.

If there’s something blocking my progress in a task, I write comments below the task’s card (using whatever kanban software). Then if I leave it to do something else, I’ll be able to replicate the last state in my head by reading the comments

Talking specifically about code, TDD really helped me, seriously, the red-green loop makes me comfortable to stop any time the tests are green, then I commit, which means that I also have very small commits which also help me with the interruptions once I'm back.

To not miss what I was thinking ahead, I always to keep a todo list (I just use Notes) of everything that comes to mind that I still need to fix or code which I postponed from the current commit, so I don't loose track while at the same time it frees me to focus on a specific thing at a time.

Now sometimes this does not apply, sometimes you just need long, deep and uninterrupted focus, like thinking about the perfect abstraction for something, or those long debugging sessions I mentioned. For those, I try to be sure to block some time or I don't even start it on that day

I find it really annoying to be interrupted at work, and remote work has enabled me to regain my focus.

I even tried not having Teams running when I was 'in the zone' only to end up being called on the phone to check 'whether I was working today'... :(

You can at least set it to flash only once (better than constant blinking).

People calling you on the phone is another story and part of the company culture I believe. In my case I don't get phone calls from work, only teams calls and those are always scheduled in advance.

I've personally learned to embrace the interruptions and find much value in them. Usually interruptions caused by other engineers are often quite useful to the company and sometimes even life enriching. Kind and respectful interactions with others can make the lives of the people around you so much more bearable, and many people suffer alone in their own heads, especially now in such a dark time.

    Coworker who sees me looking at something in a browser: "Glad you're not busy; I need you to do this, this, this..."

    Coworker who sees me staring intently at a command prompt: Backs away, slowly...

I will sometimes, depending on the level of concentration, close all communication apps, phone on silent and lock doors.

for diffcult work with other people, that gets complex, I'll keep meetings to one or two attendees.

I also do a brain dump and write down in notepad, my problems and to do stuff, then prioritise the list

When I drive and listen to an audiobook, I sometimes have to stop, make a note, and only then I can keep driving. If I don't stop to make a note I am going to miss either the rest of the audiobook or the idea I just had.

Writing the idea down lets me safely "park it" for later and focus on the rest of the audiobook.

This only works when you can trust the idea comes back when you can do something about it.

I am using a compromise/modified GTD (Getting Things Done) system. I have a bunch of folders for my projects and each has special NOTES document where I write down anything pertaining to the project. So the next time I come back to think about that project the idea/task/whatever I just wrote will come back to me and I will be able to do something about it.

I check slack when I feel like it and if there are messages, I answer them.

I feel very little stress compared to when I was in the office and people were talking, walking and laughing around me constantly. It was impossible to focus for 5 minutes.

Learn coping mechanisms to promote "bookmarking" focus and thought processes.

Practice coping mechanisms for switching between focused work and unfocused work.

Smile when you feel interrupted, somebody or something needs you. You must decide to ignore, respond, or react.

Just like an unhelpful thought, a distraction or interruption is just that, but instead of internal it's external.

Take breaks, consider pomodoro technique. Teach a man to fish.

Stop. Freeze:

Are you are being interrupted as a camel, as a lion, or as a child?

Try to awake as a child, GROW, EXPLORE, DOCUMENT, MULTIPLY.

https://www.unturf.com

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