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Comment by DevKoala | Hacker News Reader

Not at all. The person asking for attention will communicate what topic they want to discuss. I can then evaluate if that topic is more important than whatever I am working or focused on. If I tell the person that they need to wait, they could tell me why I am not doing my priority evaluation correctly and then I’ll reassess. There is no conflict or lack of politeness. The system works well for our team.

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> The person asking for attention will communicate what topic they want to discuss. I can then evaluate if that topic is more important than whatever I am working or focused on.

I think that’s how the vast majority of office communication works.

If you are properly evaluating the request then you are already knocked out of the zone.

It originally sounded like you were saying you would say the equivalent of “Mate, if the buildings not on fire then send me an email and I’ll get back to you”.

Because that’s how remote staff often get treated - with calls etc just not answered.

I am definitely not knocked out of the zone when someone asks me a 5 second question and I give an even shorter reply. I am confident that in a different environment I would have to adapt the method, but in the physical environment I work on (not now due to Corona), the system I described works.

> I am definitely not knocked out of the zone when someone asks me a 5 second question and I give an even shorter reply

I’m not understanding how you can possibly understand and prioritise your colleagues requests for help in 5 seconds.

I’d say it takes me 2-3 minutes to understand the average request I get. And it’s 2-3 minutes of deep thought.

We have planning meetings in which we determine priorities once a week and everyday during standup we reevaluate priorities. Do you experience these interruptions daily? If a team has to constantly revise priorities in the middle of the day then that is the symptom of a bigger problem. Do you guys write technical design docs before going into implementation?

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