[skriticos2]

Asking someone a quick question while they are in the middle of something is a good way to break their focus. It takes a lot of effort to "get into the zone", so you will not only lower the productivity of the person you "ask a quick question", but you'll also make him frustrated. He may even get a head-ache. How can you live with yourself?

This mostly applies to jobs which involve a higher degree of complexity, like programming.. but as you are on HN, I assume you meant something IT related.

[trose]

I reject this assertion that people get ripped "out of the zone". What are you doing that is so complex that you can't jump right back into it?

I've met plenty of people that like to act like they're some super elite programmer that is juggling complex class structures and debugging them inside their head. In my experience so far, those people are full of shit and make overly complex spaghetti code. Idk though, maybe this is different between web development and something like game engine development.

[swift]

The phenomenon of being "in the zone" is considered real by most psychologists, as far as I'm aware. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

FWIW while I think interruptions are a real problem, I have certainly encountered some people who I think demand more quiet than is really needed. But some of this may just come down to differences in how tolerant people are of noise, or perhaps how stressed they are.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It seems there may also be a link between creativity and sensitivity to ambient noise.

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/03/creat...

[nevir]

It doesn't matter whether I'm doing something simple or complex - for some reason it always takes me 5-10 minutes to refocus after being interrupted.

[josephschmoe]

Imagine you have a coworker who is always on the phone quite loudly nearby you with a very identifiable voice. That's what these people seek to avoid - specific distractions that humans have adapted for thousands of years to pick up on.

[warfangle]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity...

Adults have it; amphetamines help but don't cure it; the ADA requires reasonable accommodations for it.

[dangerlibrary]

It comes down to how quickly you are working. If under time pressure, efficiently completing straightforward sets of tasks - even writing Rails or Java boilerplate in all the right places - is complicated enough that I don't want to be knocked out of a flow state. Of course I can do those things without intense focus, but I can't get them done in under an hour.