[zcbenz]

Since several years ago I was starting to have health issues that if I sat still for too long my eyes/arms/legs/waist would feel pain, sometimes fiercely. So I set a timer to remind me to stop staring at the monitor and stand up to do some light exercise, at first the timer was 40 minutes and in recent years it became 20 minutes as my body wears.

So now my work is interrupted every 20 minutes, at first the timer was annoying but after several months I got used to it completely and I don’t think it affects my productivity. And actually I wish I could do it from the begining so I wouldn’t have the health issues at all.

However my interruption is short and during it I was uaually just thinking about my work while stretching my body, so it is no compare to hard context switches like being dragged to a conversation.

[ssgodderidge]

Sorry to hear about the need to take breaks; that sucks. Glad you’re able to work around it, though.

I suspect the physical exercise is key to your effectiveness there. There’s a big difference between a pause for a stretch and a pause for a message about an entirely different workstream.

Not all interruptions are created equal.

[wink]

People are different. I can usually even answer a question on Slack without breaking concentration but if someone is talking to me everything's gone. Same as going to fetch a glass of water. In the office? Locking the computer and walking kinda far, maybe even locking/unlocking a door, meeting people? A real interruption. At home, 3m to the tap? Not losing a thought. But I do know other people who can talk between writing code and not be interrupted but if they have to answer on Slack they have the same problem.