Context switching is hard, so what are ways...

Context switching is hard, so what are ways to make it easier? " "" "One key is to find ways to remove potential distractions when entering a deep context. Not every task requires the same context; some are easier to switch in and out of than others. So, when you need deep focus, where just loading in your context takes 20+ minutes, you need to ensure your chance of disruption is minimized. " "" "There are many ways to accomplish this. One is to craft your work schedule around when you are most productive and when the fewest distractions tend to come in for you. This could be the early morning or later in the evening. Another is to find ways to snooze incoming messages: turn Slack notifications off, put your phone in "Do Not Disturb," whatever you need to do." "" "If there's a period in the day where interrupts will come in, and you will need to address them right away, coalesce all your interruptible work together! Instead of trying to do deep work during that period, do all the small tasks that are easy to be distracted from and easy to context switch back into. For me, that's the afternoons, where there are endless questions and pings about various topics, some urgent, some not. I expect this, though, and rarely try to do heads-down work during this time; I instead do all the little things that are easy to interrupt, like ensuring my schedule for the next day/week is looking good, check-in in on code reviews, answer messages in Slack, etc." "1" "Interrupt coalescing, to actively expect interrupts in a time period, is a way I've found to reduce the burden of context switching. You can't be torn out of a deep context if you weren't in one when a distraction came in! #bendevtip

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Original post on LinkedIn