How to deal with constant interruptions at work (with ADHD)

I'm autistic, and quickly become very frustrated by distracting sounds and unexpected or unproductive interruptions. Unfortunately, this is a "me" problem, and I've found that I'm the only one interested in solving it.

After years of carefully managing/challenging expectations of me, here's what my work situation looks like today.

- I work 100% remotely. If I go into the office, I will only be interrupted constantly, dragged into meetings, etc.

- My Teams status is set to "offline" at all times, with notifications disabled. No exceptions. I check Teams messages between tasks, before/after lunch, and at the end of the work day.

- Unproductive Teams messages, like impromptu requests for status updates, questions which have well-documented answers, or that I've answered directly on multiple recent occasions, are completely ignored.

- All work requests which are not submitted via official channels are ignored. The remainder are addressed only if they are submitted, or assigned, directly by my manager. I completely ignore all other work requests.

- I've created dozens of mail rules to filter out almost all of the noise in my inbox, including the company newsletter, timesheet reminders, office-specific messages (bagels in the lunch room!?!), etc.

I know I'm a pain in the ass, but at least my sanity is stable after years of overwhelming frustration while trying to effect even the slightest change in others.

In my younger, crazier days when I was OK with giving up work/life balance, I dealt with this by not really trying to get things done in the office (by which I mean not bothering trying to reach or maintain flow state). Instead, I'd mostly warm my office chair and do my real work after hours at home.

Now, though, I think "screw that". I want a life. So I just found a way to accept that working in an office environment means that I won't be able to do my best or most efficient work and don't worry about making up for it on my off time.

- Ignore your inbox: Unless you're in a support role, most company emails are not as critical as you might think. All of that noise between blathering newsletters, GitHub notifications, calendar events, various service updates, and alerts from failed CI jobs are mere distractions. You can configure your mail to filter these out or, like I do, not bother checking them for days. If something's actually important, you'll probably find out on Slack.

- Unless someone is coming to you with an urgent ask, either delay getting back to them or just tell them that you need heads-down time right now.

- Pause notifications in Slack. On top of this, add your phone number to your Slack profile and make it clear to everyone that they can still reach you if everything's on fire.

- Mute most of the Slack channels you feel obligated to join. Why companies and even individual employees believe that more channels is better, I have no clue. Complete waste of time.

- Invent reasons to skip your daily standup. Even a 15 minute interruption can disrupt you from being in your zone. Screw these lame ass status update meetings in disguise.

- Just say no to pair programming if you're in a flow, unless the other person needs urgent help.

- If you work in an office, find a hallway or room deep in the bowels of the office building where no one seems to go and do your work there. There was an office I worked at once where there was a concrete hallway way in the bottom corner of the building where almost nobody went but it had a treadmill desk, so I worked down there a lot in peace. Some lady eventually figured out I was doing this and started spreading rumors that I was creepy or that I had quit. Just ignore idiots like this if that happens. That office environment was loud.

- Observe what area of the office floor is the least noisy (and possibly furthest away from your interrupt-happy team members) and ask management if you can switch to a desk over there.

- Recognize when being distracted isn't a bad thing. Everyone's mileage may vary, but personally, being ultra-focused all the time made no impact on my career versus working diligently but not punishing myself if I felt like stepping away from work for a while. Time spent at the keyboard doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with productivity in tech. Above all, you're not a cog.

Mute non-priority channels. If it isn't a Prod alert, my team's private channel, or a customer-facing channel where they have been directed to in order to request help (Cloud DevOps team that does all the things, people constantly ask us for help with their work), it's muted.

I've been using the "Hummus" notification for some years because the dings are triggering and hummus is yummy. But in the past couple of months, I leave my audio muted.

"Lofi beats to study to" is actually a really great genre of music to put on in the background as it gives my brain stimulation but is not detracting. It can help me start getting focused on my task rather than looking for something interested in the muted channels.

I don't look at email but a few times a day to hit the "delete" button and ponder how to make a rule to filter out the email I delete on a daily/weekly basis.

Direct people who want your help to your team's public Slack channel. Do not help people in your DMs. This gives the whole team a chance to help and not put it all on you. We went further and the primary on-call person is responsible for being the first contact to our customers in our public channel. The idea is to make it so people not on-call don't get distracted. It's worked.

Now, if you can get your customers to stop asking for help (For my team, this has come down to training them on the things we get repeat questions about, and directing them back to their own team to ask for help before coming to us), and get your team to quit asking for help, you'll be golden.

Edit: Tell people to use threads. It helps reduce pings.

Also tell people not to use @here. Send them an article about why not to use it. Also use passive-aggressive emojis like :pingsock: when they continue to do it in channels with 900 people in them.

To go offline in slack should be an option. Talk to your manager or someone at the company. You have a disability, there must be accommodations.

What I do is keep any chat and such closed and only accept e-mail. I then have two set times a day where I check it by going through the mailbox. There should be no argument that you can't do this unless you're employed to be always on-call and need to be responsive in 5 minutes.

Make sure to generate a paper trail when asking.

Leave channels that you’re not required to be in. For some channels it can be enough to disable notifications. (They will still be bold in the channel list when there are new messages.)

Going offline from Slack for 1-2 hours a day might not be impossible? That’s a start. Try it and then evaluate after a week or two.

Talk to your manager: "find me a way not to be interrupted all the time, or multiply my delivery time by 2, as you wish".

Turning slack off is totally an option.

Remove stimuli. If it's noise, use headphones and earplugs. If it's people, face your computer away from them. If it's inbox, increase update or retrieval time. You have the solutions.

Mark on your calendar "heads down" time for 2-hours sprints. People might respect it but you may also have to disconnect.

Quick heads up, I'm assuming you're not taking any meds—no judgment. On a personal note, I'm pretty sure I've got ADHD (still waiting on that official diagnosis). Sitting in front of a computer is a struggle for me, so I've switched things up by working standing upfront. Bonus: I bounce (back and forth) with the music, and it surprisingly does the trick! About five years ago, I penned a book about this quirky workstyle. If you're into music, maybe give it a shot: https://www.amazon.com/Limitless-Work-Dance-EDM-Music/dp/179...

I write my to-do list for the day on the previous day just before I go home.

Then, as soon as I come in, I have an unambiguous list of things to do, one by one, and I commit to not deviating from the list, unless the world is on fire.

That makes it easier for me to ignore Slack, but even if not, I'll see messages come in, and unless they sound like fire, I go back to my list.

Not sure if helps, but I found it quite helpful.

Headphones blasting no music, with earplugs in.

I tried (and was successful) for years with gun mufflers with earplugs, but I got into a company where some salespeople couldn't get the message, so the switch to headphones over earplugs.

It's the next best thing to a strong ADD med :)

Also, considering your seemingly constant barrage, the pomodoro method (easily googled)

You can set DND for a limited time, check the slash commands in this article. https://slack.com/help/articles/214908388-Pause-notification...

Audio therapy is very helpful -- quiet brown noise in the background can be very helpful for assisting focus.

This is one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqzGzwTY-6w

I replaced the Slack client with wee-slack [https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack]. It brings a much more "zen" experience to using Slack and better compliments my keyboard-centric desktop/workflow (e.g. clear all unread channel notifications? keybind! Jump between all the high priority/@mentioned notifications? keybind!) It also helps if you're expected to be available via Slack, since it can keep you showing "green" while you've actually been ignoring it.

I think there isn’t a miracle solution for increasing the focus. Is like a muscle you want to make it stronger. It needs lots of discipline and practice.

This is a list of things I’ve done on and off for the last 2 years and feel like it improved my focus.

- get rid of possible distractions (phone-turned off all the notifications) - read books constantly (I made a rule to read at least 1 page a day) - meditation - morning pages (is more like a journaling, but continuous flux of thoughts written on 3 letter pages every morning)

The morning pages I think helped me the most not only for my focus, but also for my mental wellbeing.

Are you in the US? I recommend this article: https://www.additudemag.com/workplace-legal-protection/

If your ADHD is preventing you from working effectively, you have the legal right to reasonable accommodations (going offline on Slack may be one).

Any decent engineering manager would be happy to work with you to find a way for you to work effectively, and the ADA gives them cover to make exceptions to company policy.

> Going offline on slack is probably not an option.

Unless you're in a support role and actively on-call for coverage for a period of time, I think I would revisit this assumption and be sure you collapse the "probably" to something more definitive.

If you're in a more typical development role, turning off Slack for periods of time is probably an option. Talk to your manager, describe the problem you're facing, your proposal to trial going off Slack for 2 hours (or whatever) at a time, and see what they think.

1. There are necessary interruptions and there are optional interruptions.

Almost all electronic interruptions are optional. Put them in a dedicated browser identity, a dedicated email identity, a dedicated virtual machine, a dedicated physical machine, etc.

2. Flow is not a magical state. Work is how you get into flow. Work is how you recover from interruptions from a flow state. So just start doing something that needs to be done.

3. Drama is interesting. It is not work.

Good luck.

My usual recommendation is to be deliberate about time you’re setting aside for focusing. Like others said, a combination of blocked time on your calendar, closing Slack and email, a Pomodoro timer, and music (or white noise) through noise canceling headphones.

> Going offline on slack is probably not an option.

Out of curiosity, what makes you say this? What would happen if you were to close slack for an hour?

My setup requires multiple monitors. Having at least 2 monitors then a laptop on the side. Turn all notification sound off and make sure the slack red dot stays on laptop screen, on the edge of your peripherals.

While focusing on work it will be harder to notice the red dot but won't be turned off.

Music helps when it's hard to focus, I prefer some genre of instrumentals.

absolutely, constant messaging interruptions are terrible. Solution is turn of messaging, hide my phone, and help my colleagues know that if they consider about the outcome / work I do they'll let me focus. It doesn't matter if they think that's unreasonable, it just is what it is, and it's important for me to communicate that. I have, ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism. Have worked in this field for a long time. The problem is not the tech. It's the social expectation and that needs to change to enable people who are neurodiverse. Because normies do things, they need to understand, other people rock it, when they do different, because we are different.

I'm self-employed now, but back in the office I'd use a mix of different tricks:

- Aggressively filter incoming email. Leave most group conversations.

- Turn off instant messaging, check it every hour or so.

- Aggressively avoid meetings. Leave meetings when you no longer need to be there.

- Work from home more. Work from quiet parts of the office.

Meds helped me a lot.

An alternative which is almost as good is using a novel enviornment to enforce the desired behaviour. i.e Go to a coffee shop. But this stops working after a while.

Also try using apps which block or limit you from distractions. Sure you could easily disable the blocker but that little bit of resistance is often enough.

Headphones. People think you’re busy and avoid interrupting you physically.

Block your calendar to stop virtual interruptions.

Check Slack & email on a schedule, leave a phone number for emergencies, wear headphones (possibly with noise cancellation), take quiet walks, and practice deep breathing. Make sure basics are covered first, like a consistent sleep schedule, etc.

I make sure by boss understands that if I'm expected to monitor and respond to slack all day long anything else I'm asked to do is going to take forever and I won't be able to commit to having any other work done by a particular date.

Some of my inspiration came from the 4 Hour Work Week.

I block out time when I look at email, jira, and messaging.

From my own ideas, I do not schedule meetings first thing in the morning. I reserve that time to think and do strategic planning.

for me, its about getting into the task as instantly as possible... Say im returning from the toilet, i sit on my desk, open code editor, and code the next thing, all in like 2 seconds. Being adhd for me actually means i can get in to the zone TOO quickly. But that usually means the zone of music or other white noise at youtube. The wrong sequence would be like sit down at desk, open youtube to set music/white noise, open editor, check slack, get into the code cause you are already in the youtube zone.

Need to clarify why I think going completely offline is not an option. As tech lead I feel I should be available for my team.

If you have a Mac, the full screen mode with virtual desktops is fantastic.

i3wm achieves something similar on Linux.