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The cost of interrupted work (2023)

(blog.oberien.de)
282 points _vaporwave_ | 2 comments | 23 Aug 25 21:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.014s | source
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Waterluvian ◴[23 Aug 25 23:25 UTC] No.44999915[source]▶
Some days an interruption will throw me off my train of thought, and I spend the remaining six hours collecting discarded bottles and railway ties for hopeful use somewhere, somehow, sometime.

Other days an interruption costs me pretty much nothing.

I’m still trying to figure out how to tell which of those days I’m going to have and whether to just not log into Slack for the day.

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karmakaze ◴[24 Aug 25 01:26 UTC] No.45000493[source]▶
I've found one thing that minimizes interruption cost: pair programming. At one startup we pair programmed all day, every day. Resuming from an interruption was almost seamless. Can't explain it, only experienced it.
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SoftTalker ◴[24 Aug 25 02:00 UTC] No.45000671[source]▶
If only I wouldn’t prefer stabbing myself in the leg with a rusty knife over pair programming.
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1. CGamesPlay ◴[24 Aug 25 03:02 UTC] No.45000950{3}[source]▶
I suspect that this would also lead to interruptions having almost no effect on your productivity.
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2. wiseowise ◴[24 Aug 25 07:38 UTC] No.45002168[source]▶
Because it would be in the gutter in the first place?