You think you’re doing great after a distraction but you’re not. I thought I was!
I couldn’t spot the difference in thoughts before or after the distraction so I started taking notes right before I knew I was about to distract myself or there was a meeting coming up.
When I came back to the task/work I was a bit shocked to notice the difference between what I thought I needed to do vs what I noted down earlier!
The reason I was shocked is because I thought I had an amazing memory!
It’s crazy, but constant distractions do actually mess up things big time, even tiny notifications that look harmless!
Sometimes we blame certain problems as a result of lack of skills/time but it’s really the distractions that lower the quality of our work.
That said I think it’s fair to know that distractions aren’t always a problem.
If you’re conscious about when you allow yourself to be distracted then you’ll be fine. Just randomly reacting to everything is what causes issues!
Based on what you’re doing you should know that “this can’t go wrong, it’s important. no distractions. Keep in check the temptation to do something else!”
Common programmers distractions:
- Unwanted meetings
- Slow tests or compiling process
- Emails asking info that’s already been answered
- Random sounds
- Notifications (slack/outloook/teams/huddles etc..)
- Switching between tabs
- Helping other members of the team
- Wrong type of music
- Sore eyes
- Sneaking on linkedin/twitter/tiktok/fb etc..
- Being involved in drama because it’s interesting
- Losing track when switching between files
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