Imagine this, you have worked the entire morning analyzing a problem, you are about to reach the solution and suddenly the phone rings. It's a very kind lady offering you another life insurance that you don't need. You try to finish the call and say goodbye to her as politely as you can, trying not to be on the phone for more than two minutes. Immediately you try to resume the task you were working on but then you wonder... "Where was I? In which line was I supposed to stop the debug? What was the variable that I needed to check? It's already too late.
Managing to get back to the point you were at may take you another couple of hours. You finally get back in tune, but then the phone rings again. This time it’s a colleague who kindly wants to run ahead the e-mail notification and warn you that he has just sent you an important e-mail. You try to say goodbye to him politely, trying not to be on the phone for more than two minutes, and try to resume the task you were working on immediately, but then you wonder... "Where was I? In which line was I supposed to stop the debug? What was the variable that needed to check? It's already too late.
I'm sure that you've felt that "déjà vu" sensation at some point, haven’t you?
It is a fact. Our environment is filled with noise and distractions everywhere. Chats, phone calls, e-mail pop-ups, notifications, social networks and surely another large number of distractions is being created right in this moment. For those who work in marketing or customer care, this can be a world of opportunities, but for those of us who work in software development this can be a nightmare.
We waste precious time and energy dealing with these constant distractions while struggling to get our work done, feeling increasingly exhausted as the day goes by. At the end of a day like this you might end up with the phrase: I think that I did so much today, that in the end I did nothing at all. The worst part is that this scene is repeated day after day and then you get to the weekend with a sense of guilt that takes away your chance to rest, because next week the exact same thing will happen again.
Are you overwhelmed by all that noise and spam that is generated in our workplaces, in our lives? How do you manage to prevent it from stealing your valuable time and even from not letting you sleep at night?
You can find lots of blogs about this subject, with magic tips, tricks and lists of 4, 5, 10, 20 or more rules. I really don’t know if they are useless or not. I prefer asking you, my colleagues, because you really are trustworthy.
If you have managed to overcome this, please tell us how did you do it? A single message can save our jobs and even our lives. :lol:
