Programmer interrupted: The cost of interruption and context switching (2022)
I don&#x27;t remember where I read it, in a book or on HN or even if someone told it to me. But I learned that when requesting time or disruption: certain positions need specialised handling.<p>An example:<p>A receptionist does not necessarily need focus time, and is interrupt driven, so their work should not stretch to more than 5 minute intervals; if something takes more than 5 minutes it <i>must</i> be filed for someone else.<p>A manager manages their time in 30 minute increments, anything that can&#x27;t reasonably be done inside a meeting is unfortunately unlikely to happen. This is stupid, but it&#x27;s unfortunately true; you might sometimes experience other situations but I think that&#x27;s not the common case.<p>A programmer (or, researcher, etc;etc) books time in half-day increments. If you <i>must</i> have a meeting with programmers, it&#x27;s often better to book events in serial but only consume half a day.<p>I&#x27;ve been practising this methodology for 8 or so months in my org and it does seem to hold true in the general case, there are some minor exceptions but most people do seem to he happy.<p>EDIT: It was the &quot;Makers Schedule&quot; by PG; Serves me right not to read the comments[0] before commenting.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=35462780" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=35462780</a>