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Background

I am working as a developer in a tech company. Every employee in our department has a vague and interlacing responsibility, meaning: an employee might be tasked to do something that he/she has no experience. Our development department does not have any plan, usually we perform tasks according to what manager wants at that moment. We have a fairly large room for our department but we sit in an open floor plan.

Problem

I get distracted from work very often. Sources of distraction can be:

  • Unknown urge for Internet browsing

  • Manager intervening while I am on an ongoing task

  • Customers calling for support/info

  • Colleague asking for solution

  • A sales rep. visiting about a project they have in mind

Usually, when one or more of above happen while I am in deep focus, I lose my focus and motivation. Even though I know exactly what to, I cannot perform anymore.

I understand our department performs on momentary verbal notice, so I began to put my headphones and dive into code. But this was not a solution and I still get interrupted. It takes unknown amount of time until I feel ready again to dive in code.

Question

1- How can I regain my focus?

2- Do I have an Attention deficit disorder? Should I visit a doctor?

UPDATE

There is an already discussed and answered question here but answers does not apply for my condition (Refer to Sources of distraction above)

Community
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raidensan
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    What's wrong with you is that you're human. No need to visit a doctor for this condition: give it 60 - 75 years and it'll take care of itself. +1 for vault-boy DP. – AndreiROM Jan 05 '16 at 20:03
  • Perhaps you are right, but I feel uncomfortable throwing away limited precious time I have in life. – raidensan Jan 05 '16 at 20:07
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    I was mostly joking, hence just writing it as a comment. You need to find a way of keeping some of those distractions at bay, such as reaching an agreement with a colleague over who answers the phone during certain hours. If your work allows you to work custom hours you could try coming in a little earlier and getting stuff done before other people get in the office. Alternatively maybe negotiate a day per week to work from home so that you can focus on code? Worth talking to your boss about. – AndreiROM Jan 05 '16 at 20:09
  • How well do you know your own usual motivations? After all, don't you have a reason why you get out of bed in the morning? Why you have this job instead of something else? There are numerous psychological theories around motivation but do you want to do the work to know what works for you? – JB King Jan 05 '16 at 20:12
  • @AndreiROM I have tried some of your suggestions. My vague responsibility is to manage, develop and support a desktop application. This application is mostly legacy-spaghetti-code, so most of my colleagues avoid getting involved. My manager puts almost all of work on me. Hence I am almost the only one who can truly give support to costumer. I have discussed this with my manager but he does not seem to care :/ – raidensan Jan 05 '16 at 20:15
  • I'd question what proficiency are you expecting given X hours of doing this professionally. Do you have 10,000 hours as a professional developer? That is a number from Malcolm Gladwell about how long it takes to master something just as something to ponder which is about 5 working years assuming 40 hours a week and working 50 weeks a year. – JB King Jan 05 '16 at 20:17
  • @JBKing I know what works best for me, but I needed money and I agreed with said conditions. I just want to perform better under these circumstances. – raidensan Jan 05 '16 at 20:18
  • So many duplicates it's impossible to list them all. – Joel Etherton Jan 05 '16 at 20:23
  • @JBKing I have around 13000 hours of actually developing. I have experienced these kind of problems through my career. But, never had a solution. – raidensan Jan 05 '16 at 20:24
  • In your "sources of distraction", try to filter the list down to the items that happen regularly. For example, "urge to browse the internet", and "customers calling for support". If those things happen every day and it is distracting, you need to deal with those first. The other distractions that occur once in a while are not important in comparison. – Brandin Jan 06 '16 at 10:18

1 Answers1

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You may have some success with the pomodoro technique. I was skeptic at first, but after trying it I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with its simplicity and efficiency in helping keep focus.

It won't keep other people from interfering with your work though.

user1220
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    +1 But it can keep people out too! You can always say "I'll be free in 15 minutes, can we talk then?" If you were in a meeting, they would certainly understand and wait, and a 'work slot' can have the same priority as a meeting. – Kos Jan 06 '16 at 10:27