Jason Fried of 37 Signals wrote an article titled “The way I work” a few days ago about his work schedule, balance, and prioritization.

In it he covers his typical day and mindset.  What’s interesting is his focus on basing all of his decisions around eliminating one thing, that I’ve been a huge fan of.

Interruption is the enemy of productivity.

Here’s the deal.  When creating anything, be it creative, abstract, or analytical, there’s not a lot of space to leave your thinking and attention in auto-pilot mode.

You have to be present.  You have to be immersed.  You have to be deep into what you are doing. You have to be swimming in the deep end of the pool.

You have to be flowing, effortlessly, with all your might, at the same time.. as per The little book of flow

In software development, and startups especially, our time is prone to interruptions.  For me, interruptions are poisonous to productivity.  Developers are paid to deliver, not spin their wheels, and confuse activity with results.

It’s been long established that a block of 2-3 hours, uninterrupted, is the best chance you have to get 5-6 hours of work done. The more you’re behind the steering wheel and driving intently, the quicker you will reach and pass the challenges that lie ahead.

In Jason’s article, every aspect of his day shares a creation and use of insulation around his time and accessibility, as well as for  everyone on his team.

I spend another good portion of my day thinking about how to make things less complicated. In the software world, the first, second, and third versions of any product are really pretty good, because everyone can use them. Then companies start adding more and more stuff to keep their existing customers happy. But you end up dying with your customer base, because the software is too complicated for a newcomer. We keep our products simple. I’d rather have people grow out of our products, as long as more people are growing into them.

This leaves them to do what they do best.. create.  Everyone is accessible, but it’s opt-in.  Whether its reading time, coding time, or design time, it’s just that, and it stays just that.  He tells his tale of working interruption free, far more than the majority of folks.  Does it mean he’s interruption free? No. But he seems to manage what he does.

What’s the benefit of doing it this way?  Well, at any given moment, we really can’t say what might come our way.  Often when we are chasing our work, or it is chasing after us, another fire comes our way.

I remember something I learnt during my Network Engineer days.  I was good at being thrown down a well, into any situation, and  coming out successful.  The client was happy and we didn’t really have to look at it again.  Tiring, yes.  Stressful, of course. Exciting, yeah.  Learn to learn quickly? Absolutely.

That is, until I realized what it was doing to me.  I was getting a reputation of being a star who could be thrown into any messy situation and come out on top.  Guess what I started getting more of… messy situations!   So, by being good at cleaning up messes, I attracted more. The only problem was, I didn’t get to perform or create at my highest level when I was dealing with problems that I was inheriting.

So I started refusing to participate in the emergencies of others that were preventable either by time, or by frequency (the same people often have the biggest fires) that I started building — and keeping the highest creative part of my time to myself.  This lead me to my second major rule of interruption.

Poor planning on your part, does not make an emergency in my part.

Wishful thinking?  Perhaps, to those hopelessly lost.  Concepts of managing your manager, and managing expectations are often things we all need to learn painfully, personally in ways that we will never forget.

How to slay the interruption dragon?  Find what works for you.  Keep searching until you have your fit. Here’s some of what I practice.

1. Batch Work: Compartmentalizing my day into business tasks, development tasks, design tasks, etc, has helped me a lot.  When I try to be a hero, it only lasts so long.
2. Surprise Time: I leave 1-2 whole hours a day un-scheduled every day for surprises.  If no surprises come, great, I get ahead on other items.
3. Email and Voicemail can wait. Turn off all voicemail and email indicators on your screen, in sound, etc.  They are all distractions and interruptions.  There is no problem big or important enough that it can’t wait an hour or two.  If the problem really is that large, let it be — you will get repeated calls.  People will be jumping out windows.  I have a 3 call rule.  If I don’t answer the first two times because I’m working on something, the third time someone better be dying or something better be on fire.  It has worked well for me.
4. Communicate in batches. Either you are someone who asks the majority of questions, or answers them.  Blackberries, et al., benefit the the folks asking questions, not the answer givers.  Too often, when people get busy doing other people’s jobs via dreaded blackberry dialogues, they’re not doing their own work.
5. Reward thoughtful interruption. Anyone who sends you a request, thought out, laid out, with supporting information to minimize back and forth deserves to be rewarded.  Anyone who emails you in advance deserves to be rewarded.  It doesn’t mean punish the last minute or late requests… their self-chosen stress will be enough and you don’t need to add to it.  But do reward those who set you up to succeed and are mindful of your plate as much as their own by getting to them sooner, faster, and more consistently.  Let the thoughtful people know of the times that you schedule your communicating.
6. Manage interrupters. Anyone who stops you, for more than 30 seconds to give you a heads up, is essentially saying through their actions that whatever they are interrupting you with is more important than what you are working on.  It also means, they are saying what you do isn’t important, to you, or them.  We can say it might not be that intentionally disrespectful. It’s far better to cultivate mindfulness between people both ways.  When someone interrupts you, religiously say “I only have a minute right now and have to finish something. If we need more time we can schedule it in, is that okay?”  This asks the visiting message to be clear, concise, and get to the point.