[chrisweekly]

^ This, 100%. It's all about decoupling physical presence from notions of "working" or "interruptible".

I find async comm tools like Slack invaluable for allowing ppl to display their status (eg "DND"), as well as the ability to control notifications -- and to catch up on topics when unable to participate in realtime. These things have immense value, whether you're remote or not.

I'll never forget the experience, some 20 years ago, being on the critical path for an imminent major release, heads-down, working furiously to deliver a mission-critical feature, and enduring a steady stream of shoulder-taps (despite headphones and body language) that made it ~impossible to do my job. Silver lining was, it made it crystal clear to me that I needed to carve out time for "deep work", and empowered me to push for and receive permission to work remotely at a time and in an org where that was a nearly unique exception. I chose to spend about half my working days remote, and across various jobs and companies and industries since, have sought and pushed for and mostly maintained this balance. I'm convinced we'd all be happier and more effective if such a balance were available more broadly.