<i>My personal experience, however, despite discussions and requests not to be disturbed other than at predefined times, I still get interrupted far too often. Other people will place their &quot;need&quot; to get something from you over your productivity almost always.</i><p>That&#x27;s an issue of:<p>1. Office environment.
2. Work culture.<p>Put folks in an open office space where they&#x27;re free to &quot;collaborate&quot;, and no great surprise folks get interrupted all the time.<p>My own work environment gives every engineer two person offices with a door they can shut, and we&#x27;ve all taken
advantage of that on many occasions.<p><i>To retain some productivity and sanity, I try to work from home 2 days per week. It is telling that on those days I often feel mentally fatigued before the end of the day.</i><p>And that&#x27;s a reasonable compromise.  You&#x27;re not totally prioritizing your own productivity to the exclusion of all else, but you&#x27;re also arranging some &quot;flow time&quot;.<p>My problem is with engineers who are chronically out of sync with the rest of their team all the time.  I&#x27;ve personally seen how detrimental that can be to team gel and productivity.