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Who am I?
Sean Prunka
PHP Developer for Battelle Memorial Institute
15 yrs of PHP/MySQL experience
Twitter: @sprunka
Email:
●
sprunka@gmail.com
●
prunkas@battelle.org
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024681012
Late Interruption
Early Interruption
Small Interruption
Big Interruption
Uninterrupted
Why are distractions such a bad thing?
EfficiencyMetric*
Time on Task
*NB:
Efficiency Metric
uses imaginary
data points
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What distractions do we face?
● Unavoidable
– Meetings
– Email
– Phone
– Coworkers
– Bosses
– Mental Blocks
– Task Switching
● Avoidable
– FOMO!
● Twitter
● FaceBook
● IRC
● G+
● Etc.
– Self Inflicted
● Smoke breaks
● Playing Games
● Videos (YouTube!)
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So, how do we combat them?
● Internal
– Imposter Syndrome
● Pep Talks
● Mentors
● Community
– FOMO
● Block site
● Close browser tabs
● External
– Put the phone on DND
– Set aside a block of
time specifically for
follow-ups via phone,
email, text, etc.
– Schedule meetings
early or late.
– Adjust your own
schedule to overlap
with “business hours”
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Tips to combat downtime (2)
● Internal
– Mental Blocks
● Improvise
● Take a break/walk
● Catch up on FOMO
● Reach out to the
community for help.
● External
– Project Switching
● Manage your time by
devoting larger chunks
of time to each project.
– 2 Projects? ½ day each
or every other day.
– 3 or more? Split days in
half and swap days.
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Extra Links and References
● Jason Fried's TED talk “Why Work Doesn't
happen At Work”: http://j.mp/12ED7C1
● Codecraft post about Interruptions:
http://j.mp/13zIuop
● Coding Horror post on Multi-Tasking:
http://j.mp/10IG8za
