
The Cost Of Interruptions: They Waste More Time Than You Think - evilsimon
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/22/442582422/the-cost-of-interruptions-they-waste-more-time-than-you-think
======
durzagott
In almost every retro I've been in, 'communication' has been near the top of
the list of complaints. Everyone wants to be informed, but nobody wants to
take the time to receive the information.

For developers, every meeting is a interruption. Every email a distraction.
Yet 'nobody ever tells us nothing'.

I know there is a happy medium, but it seems the pendulum has swung too far in
the other direction these days.

~~~
Karunamon
There's often too much communication happening, most of it irrelevant to the
people recieving it.

I've got... 2000+ messages in my inbox right now, and get something like 100
or more per day.

A lot of these are automated alerts for systems I don't manage, and so get
rule-filed into the trash.

The rest are meetings, status request updates, and other folderol that has
nothing to do with me, often nothing to do with my department, and was a waste
of time for someone to enter my name into the address field. Or a waste of
time for me to be on a specific group mailing list.

 _rant mode on_

Group distro lists need to go away because it's too easy and too thoughtless
to email people who don't know or care about what it is the other person is
mailing about. It encourages the "Well, I need to make sure $group knows about
$thing, so I'll just use $group_distro_list" mindset, even though
$group_distro_list has over 100 people on it and perhaps only 1-5 care about
the content of the message.

Meetings. Roughly 90% of the meetings I get invited to don't concern me even
tangentially. Of the remaining 10%, most of those could be handled over an
email or IM. Email isn't used because, as mentioned before, it's a dumping
ground for white noise. IM could be, and we're trying to get our PM's on board
with that, but with with meeting subjects like: "You're on X Y and Z project,
what is your status on this?" (repeated n times for n participants) - nothing
that required disrupting the mental state of 10 or more people and bringing
productivity to a halt for 2 or more hours.

People want communication, not noise. Irrelevant communication is noise.

~~~
krick
> A lot of these are automated alerts for systems I don't manage, and so get
> rule-filed into the trash.

So what's the problem? If I'm counting all automated alerts and notifications,
reminders from bugtracker, VCS and CI, mailing lists and not that important
stuff that happens to have my email in CC — there's probably much more than
100 emails per day. You know what? It doesn't really bother me. Thunderbird
has filters for that. Since I have figured out what do I care about, my inbox
is almost empty: all stuff gets sorted out by folders automatically, most of
it marked as read immediately and most likely I won't even see it if something
really unexpected doesn't happen; for another 50-80 I will read titles and
occasionally skim through some of them if I feel like that, just to keep
myself updated. I've got 10 emails left in my inbox to be sorted manually on
the quiet day, only 3 of them turn out to be something important and will stay
in the inbox for a while. So, with the help of filters and 20 specialized
folders in the end of the day I'm left feeling almost lonely and longing for
human communication. All that email isn't really noise for me, as it doesn't
distract me from anything.

~~~
Karunamon
The automated messages are easy - they go directly into the trash by sender
and subject.

The problem is I have to live in my inbox and actually process a lot of this
junk in case I'm one of the people who one of these shotgun emails is actually
relevant to. I can't just direct the other department's PM into the circular
file, even though their messages have no importance to me more often than not
- have to read each one and verify that.

It's a really awful culture :/

------
dahart
Like many of you, I'm sure, I've been plagued by interruptions at work for
years and years. For most of those years, I've ranted about how bad it is, and
gone to antisocial extremes like hanging office hours signs on the back of my
chair closing the door and not answering knocks, hiding out in quiet places,
and more. All of my tactics largely failed, people ignore my requests for
quiet because "it's just a really quick question." It's _always_ just a
"quick" question, that is _never_ satisfied with a quick answer.

But lately I'm turning around and feeling like interruptions are a sign that
communication needs to be happening that isn't, and asking the question, "how
can the things we're interrupting each other about be communicated on a
schedule we expect and can batch, rather that being surprised by it in
continuous small increments?" It might be a failure to manage properly, or it
might be poor documentation (say it ain't so!) or it might be that
interruptions are necessary and healthy and I've been swimming upstream
instead of going with the flow.

It's not like anyone wants or needs more meetings, but a lot of important talk
happens on nobody's schedule, and I'm realizing (especially as I get older and
manage people & start my own company) that much of how a company runs depends
heavily on impromptu communication, and that cutting it off might be wildly
bad. But, this post and others are right about the cost of context switching,
so clearly we need _some_ balance.

I have no answers, other than I know the entire company has to be in on and
agree to any interruption mitigation plan. I want some magical software that
will arrange batches of impromptu meetings every hour or so, that everyone in
the company would use willingly, just to keep the interruptions from being a
constant stream.

~~~
Retric
Email can be a good middle ground as long as there are no popups. The
important thing is much of this background communication works as long as
people need to respond quickly as in <4h, but not right now.

Generally where email falls down is back and forth communication, but giving
people a little time to think about something before a discussion can save a
lot of time. The trick is to also have regular add hock meetings without
interrupting people. An informal schedule might look like 1h post scrum is
communication time; 12-4 is work time where leave people alone unless you have
absolutely nothing else you can work on. And then 4-5 is a last chance to
bother people before people start heading home.

PS: If you have a shared calendar it’s not a bad idea to block out ~12-4 so
people look occupied on IM.

~~~
simoncion
To nitpick:

It's "ad hoc". Otherwise, yeah, this sounds like a _reasonably_ good workday
schedule, actually.

------
sixothree
The problem I have with getting rid of distractions is that it comes at a cost
of isolation.

The distraction topic comes up often where I work. People have become more
aware and respectful of distractions. Earbuds and Skype status are key
indicators. But letting people know you are diving into something is even more
important. It is largely a success. I haven't offended any coworkers and it
does not prevent meaningful work getting done or stop someone from getting
their questions answered. But then again this also means you might go half a
day without any meaningful interactions with someone. Be careful what you wish
for.

Skype has been a huge help (but also a huge distraction itself). It is helpful
to have a coworker Skype "I have a question can you come by" and be able to
respond "ok give me 10 minutes". It gives you that valuable time to be able to
leave something in a state where you can return and pick up.

~~~
late2part
Richard Hamming described this well, memorialized here:
[https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

"Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts
about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if
you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and
tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow
you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard
work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door
open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as
to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause
and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a
closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation
between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do
important things, although people who work with doors closed often work
harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but
enough that they miss fame."

~~~
Silhouette
That does seem to assume that someone has their door either always open or
always closed, which obviously isn't necessarily true.

------
at-fates-hands
The last big corporation I worked at, they had pretty strict protocols when
you needed help from a co-worker.

It started with an IM, if the person was listed as being in a meeting or had
their DND status on, you couldn't IM them. If they were available, you had to
ask, "Do you have a minute." and they were free to answer "no" and then set up
a time to IM you back later.

If an IM was unsuccessful, or if the person was not on IM for some reason, you
could then email them and you had to wait for a response before doing anything
else. This was of course after you had gone through the IM process.

If the person wasn't on IM or didn't answer your email (the person had an hour
to respond to your email), then and only then were you allowed to go to their
desk. If they were at their desk, you still had to ask if they had time to
talk. They could still say "no" and you had to accept whatever time frame they
set to talk later.

If all of these were unsuccessful, then you had the final option to go to your
manager. The only advantage was your manager started with an email and had 30
minutes to answer any emails with "911" In the message title.

The rules seemed pretty archaic, but if you followed them, you'd find they
were pretty efficient in promoting a __very __quiet office, with little or no
distractions. There were periods were I could go hours without needing my
headphones - it was pretty amazing.

~~~
jackmaney
That sounds almost magical. I'd almost give my left hand to have a rule system
like that here.

------
wila
To which I can only reply with:

[http://9gag.com/gag/av0z0Bn/this-is-why-you-shouldn-t-
interr...](http://9gag.com/gag/av0z0Bn/this-is-why-you-shouldn-t-interrupt-a-
programmer)

(original post and artwork here: [http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-
shouldnt-interrupt-...](http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-
interrupt-a-programmer/) )

------
chaostheory
Open office layouts are the worst for interruptions because of the inadvertant
visual interruptions that occur constantly e.g. people passing your desk

You can turn off IM and email for extended periods to disable popups, and you
can wear headphones to shield you from noise, but it's hard to shield your
peripheral vision from constantly moving people (who may also smile or wave -
expecting a response in turn) without a structure like a private office or
cubicle

~~~
webmasterraj
Given their cost economics, open layouts are probably not going anywhere in a
world of rising office rents.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, since spontaneous conversation encourages
creativity. The real problem is signaling what state you're in. Everyone looks
the same on a computer, so it's hard to tell who's in the zone and who's
available.

What if we took a huge glass conference room and dedicated it as a 'quiet do
not disturb room'? No talking at all, and the only movement is
entering/exiting. When people see you in there, it's a giant visible signal
that you're probably not responding to Slack/email/etc because you're doing
something and don't want to be disturbed.

~~~
chaostheory
> Given their cost economics, open layouts are probably not going anywhere in
> a world of rising office rents.

What does this have to do with rents? Cubicles can easily replace an open area
and they count as tax deductions. Also this is like saying that it makes sense
to give your developers cheaper, but lower performance PCs. While the lower
upfront costs are obvious, your company will pay dearly in lost man hours...
which makes no sense since silicon (or almost any other material) is still
less expensive than carbon when it comes to the cost of time.

> That's not necessarily a bad thing, since spontaneous conversation
> encourages creativity. The real problem is signaling what state you're in.

Even when you signal your state e.g. headphones People in open offices still
ignore it. Think about it. Would you not look at, smile, or wave to someone
you know, who you just happen to be walking by? Is the supposed increase in
creativity worth the major decrease in productivity when you have lunch and
happy hour as options? I could be wrong but Github was born in an happy hour

> What if we took a huge glass conference room and dedicated it as a 'quiet do
> not disturb room'?

Yup. This kind of fixes it. Based on my experience with the 'fish bowl', a
mini partition like what you see in libraries and schools would further help
reduce distractions inside a conference room while still lowering the bar for
obstacles to interaction.

------
asgard1024
We have this crazy culture of instant responsiveness. Just like we cannot wait
until thing compiles, we have IDE to tell us we didn't finish the sentence
before we can even finish it. The same goes for our managers and customers. I
am not convinced it is really more productive.

I think my ideal workweek (as a programmer) would be:

Monday: Do all the administrativia - email, meetings, status, planning for the
week and so on. No real work done.

Tuesday-Thursday: Work on a single thing (or maybe two things if one becomes
finished or blocked) without _any_ external interruption (except maybe fire).
During these 3 days, main work would be done.

Friday: Work on infrastructure, tools, configuration, cleaning things up, and
similar stuff. Maybe prepare for next Monday.

Everything work related would be planned to go to the correct day (except
emergencies).

It would be interesting if someone could try a similar setup (and share their
experience).

~~~
kraftman
The last place I worked at I had to take a lot of calls, mostly pointless,
internally. I also got a huge amount of emails about things like the
dishwasher not being emptied or the state of the kitchen in another office,
and mixed in with that would be the occasional email from someone who would be
very annoyed if I didn't reply, even to just acknowledge that I'd seen their
email.

The current place at is a lot smaller and more chilled out and it seems to
really make a difference. I don't have a phone because everyone I would talk
to is in the same room with me, and I've received 6 emails so far this year
for the same reason. Anything work related goes into chat so we can check back
on it later, things that are more permanent go in jira/confluence, and that's
that.

The amount extra work I get done is insane. I could probably do 2 hours at
this job to every 8 at the last place.

------
calcsam
Something else that wastes more time than you think: other people not being
able to ping you when they have questions about the code you wrote, or how to
do something you've done before.

~~~
pavel_lishin
That's the sort of problem that should, ideally, be fixed with regular
scheduled communication and making sure there is plenty for people to work on.
If I'm blocked on one task, there should be something else I can switch to
until Alice is done with her meeting and can explain something.

------
MengerSponge
I bought a pair of over-ear headphones because they provide a clearer _I 'm
working right now_ signal than earbuds.

They also have a better audio signal, but that was really secondary.

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
Ok then I won't read the accompanying story.

------
shadowcat
A bit of organizational sociology: most people silently group their employees
into two categories: people they pay to do things that they can't do (Type I)
and people they pay to do things that they don't want to do (Type II). If
you're Type I, you get a lot more respect than if you're Type II.

Managers who can't tell the difference between good and mediocre programmers
lump them all together into Type II. Type II employees are evaluated based on
their availability rather than their expertise or excellence. Contrary to
stereotype, managers _know_ that status pings cost a hell of a lot of time.
That doesn't mean they're going to stop doing them. If someone is seen as a
Type II employee, then it's seen as better to have that person available but
running at 25% speed (you can always hire more people).

The issue isn't that managers are idiots who don't know that interruptions
(especially the emotional kind, which status pings often become when a person
is asked to justify time) waste time. They aren't idiots, and they do know
that. The problem is that managers (and not just them, but everyone in the
mainstream business culture) tend to correlate social status and competence at
close to +1.0, so they assume that people who are getting hit with frequent
interruptions aren't very good anyway.

~~~
dahart
> managers know that status pings cost a hell of a lot of time

BTW, I learned a good hard lesson about this. I had a long ongoing argument
with one of my first managers that I could get 25% more work done if he'd just
leave me alone until the end of the week, and that it was too much overhead
and interruption for me to show my progress twice a day. I was working in CG
films, and they wanted twice-daily renders of our shots.

I was wrong. Managers _need_ status. Not twice a day for most code work,
that's not normally reasonable, but on a basis more frequent than coders want
to provide them ... it has to be _before_ the work is done, not when they feel
ready to present.

The reason is because everyone in a room can agree after an hour of talking in
detail, on precisely what needs to happen, and then a week later find out that
every single person in the room actually had a different idea.

It pays dividends to proactively provide the status managers need before they
ask for it. Fend off the unexpected or interrupting status pings, and give
them what they need.

~~~
simoncion
It sounds like -for programmers- a good compromise might be agreeing with your
manager that the last fifteen minutes of each work day will be spent on
detailed status updates, and the first five will be spent on checking email to
ensure that the hasn't been any miscommunication.

------
dbordieri
I worked in an office where people were notorious for distracting others. I
went out and bought a button, like the one from the Staples commercials that
would play a recording of me screaming "BLOCKED" when I pressed it if someone
would interrupt me. Interruptions ended shortly afterwards.

~~~
brookside
The interruptions ended when you were fired/pushed out, because that kind of
behavior would be considered outrageous in the workplace, or...anyplace?

~~~
a3voices
Well it sounds outrageous but it's possible people would just think it's
funny. I could see it going either way.

