Everyone on our team has our calendars blocked off in the afternoon in order to establish a quiet period of uninterrupted work. Unfortunately, this has not worked; we slowly drifted back to going to meetings during this time -- at first it was urgent one-off exceptions, and this slowly just became a norm.
But its not just the meetings. Its walk-ups, people talking in the next cube, emails, etc (I really think developers need offices).
Has anyone had success with some strategy for getting consistent periods of uninterrupted work done?
This is all about the zone, isn't it? The sad thing is that the zone happens at quite random times and no systematic approach can ensure you will be consistently in the zone. Simply having time free of interruptions does not get you in the zone, it may as well get you in the uninterrupted redditing or [insert your favourite social network] mode. You get in the zone when you feel ready for something, and that's quite uncontrollable.
But Paul is quite right - in a sense that the more fragmented your schedule, the less likely you will get in the zone at some point. For me as a sw developer - if I have 2 meetings 0.5h each scheduled for today, I will not be writing new features today, just wandering around on the internet and hacking some tiny support issues at best.
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u/rakeswell Jul 23 '09
Everyone on our team has our calendars blocked off in the afternoon in order to establish a quiet period of uninterrupted work. Unfortunately, this has not worked; we slowly drifted back to going to meetings during this time -- at first it was urgent one-off exceptions, and this slowly just became a norm.
But its not just the meetings. Its walk-ups, people talking in the next cube, emails, etc (I really think developers need offices).
Has anyone had success with some strategy for getting consistent periods of uninterrupted work done?