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How to concentrate on small intervals? (self.programming)

submitted 1 year ago by randomTingler to c/[email protected]

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When I'm not interrupted, I can code effectively for 20 to 30 minutes. However, constant notifications from instant messaging, emails, and meetings disrupt my concentration and make it challenging to finish tasks on time.

I once read an analogy that relates to this situation, stating that just like the value of money remains the same whether you have a $100 bill or in coins, the overall time remains constant even if you have small intervals.

How do I overcome this?

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[–] Mindlight 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As others have pointed out already: turn off notifications.

How I do it when I have to be productive and have a deadline hanging over my head:

Put on my headphones (my office is a free seating open office space)
Make sure all notifications are turned off
Open a fresh page in my OneNote (more about this further down)
Set a time where I'm exiting developer mode to check my email, get done more coffee, be social etc etc

The OneNote is for all ideas that pop up that's not about the task at hand. I quickly note it down and jump right back to what I was doing. "Do I have to buy milk on my way home? Have to ask wife... Noted!"..."Was the doctors appointment first thing tomorrow? Need to check. Noted!"

Footnote: It's weird how we got used to always being on high alert nowadays. In the old days, getting a response via mail took days. If you called someone and they didn't answer you'd just get on with your day and call later.

[–] randomTingler 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This really helps. Thank you.

[–] Mindlight 2 points 1 year ago

Another thing...If you are seated in an open office environment or have free seating it's really good if you can get some sort of agreement with your colleagues that if a someone has headphones on they should not approach and instead act as if the person wasn't there at all. They should send an email or a Teams message instead.

The single most common thing that rips me out of my creative world is people talking my shoulder asking me if I'm busy..... aaaaand then it often takes me 20 minutes to get up to speed again.