With distractions becoming more prevalent, engineers need effective strategies to minimize interruptions and enhance their focus. This article offers actionable insights to fight them.
I love this. Although one (controversial point) - I’ve worked with lots of people over the years who say they need ‘deep work’ time and block massive chunks of time out in their diary.
And I can categorically say there’s been no clear output from some of those folks.
This is only a subset of people I know, but it tarnishes the whole deep work concept for everyone who uses it with good intent.
I think regardless of the time they block, it's more about measuring objectively by outputs and seeing if there's an improvement in the outputs by doing deep work.
There may be other factors affecting those people besides distractions and context-switching
Loved all the practical tips, Fran, especially this one:
> Establish a Push-Based Backlog: Create a system where colleagues can submit their requests to you.
> Implement a Pull-Based Sprint: Allow yourself to select tasks from this backlog based on your priorities.
It's something I try to do but have a bad habit of prioritizing what comes up immediately. The planning process from (5) I've been running has helped a lot though, since I just add it to next week's sheet 😄. Thanks for the mention on that too
These are my favorite very own tactics I've implemented:
- Block your calendar for deep work and shallow work
- Use headphones in focus mode with some binaural beats
- Don't check your work email (a bit hardcore for some)
On LInkedIn I got a horde of people telling me that if you don't check slack/email constantly you are jut being selfish and blocking people...
So it's definitely hardcore for some people, but I think there is no inefficiency at all if everyone learns to work in this way.
They should all read Cal Newport's books
I love this. Although one (controversial point) - I’ve worked with lots of people over the years who say they need ‘deep work’ time and block massive chunks of time out in their diary.
And I can categorically say there’s been no clear output from some of those folks.
This is only a subset of people I know, but it tarnishes the whole deep work concept for everyone who uses it with good intent.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think regardless of the time they block, it's more about measuring objectively by outputs and seeing if there's an improvement in the outputs by doing deep work.
There may be other factors affecting those people besides distractions and context-switching
Loved all the practical tips, Fran, especially this one:
> Establish a Push-Based Backlog: Create a system where colleagues can submit their requests to you.
> Implement a Pull-Based Sprint: Allow yourself to select tasks from this backlog based on your priorities.
It's something I try to do but have a bad habit of prioritizing what comes up immediately. The planning process from (5) I've been running has helped a lot though, since I just add it to next week's sheet 😄. Thanks for the mention on that too
Thank you for the mention !