The endless state of no flow

Day 270 / 365

I was reading the book “Peopleware”, about managing people in a software development team. The authors had conducted a survey in which they asked people to log each and every time they were interrupted while they were working. Here’s how a typical entry looked

This is so true it’s sad. In any big office environment, it is impossible to even get an hour of work in without something distracting you. The situation has worsened by the new “open office” plans that everyone is now adopting, trying to fit more and more employees in a small space.

When you give your undivided attention to the task at hand for a significant amount of time, you enter into a flow state. It is called that because when you are in the state you lose the sense of time, it just seems to flow by. If you have ever experienced this you would know that someone is at their most productive when they are in the flow state.

However, if you get interrupted while you are in the flow state, it would take you some time for you to get it back. With endless interruptions every few minutes, you will never achieve it. That’s the endless state of no flow which most of us are forced to work in.

What would be the solution to this? First of all, we need to give employees sufficient personal space to work in. Secondly, people should try emailing or instant messaging others, instead of calling them or just showing up unannounced. People need to understand that it’s the uninterrupted hours that a person spends at the office that matters.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Things in the margins of old books