The flow is what makes a programmer thrive or fail. How many interruptions did you have today? Can you stop them? Interruptions turn each day into chunks of productivity. Each interruption costs a programmer at least 10 minutes, plus the time spent during the interruption. Here are some tips to avoid interruptions and get to a flow state of mind. Kill interruptions before they kill your productivity. When was the last time that you programmed without any interruptions? Some of the tips: 1. Keep your email clients closed 2. Keep Twitter closed 3. Keep Facebook closed 4. Start tracking time spent on every project 5. Unplug your phone 6. Silence your cell phone 7. Use Slack Manage your interruptions before they manage your productivity.

1. Productivity Tips
for Programmers
Ombu Labs, April 2015

2. Productivity =
Flow (hs) - Interruptions (hs)

3. The Flow

4. “A state of concentration or
complete absorption with the
activity at hand and the situation.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

5. Interruptions kill
productivity

6. A programmer takes between 10-15
minutes to start editing code after
resuming work from an interruption.
[source]

7. Interruptions

8. “Hey! Can you help me
with this?”

9. Email #32334
Subject: VERY URGENT stuff

10. @etagwerker hey, check
out this gif! #Twitter

11. Tips

12. Keep your phone on
vibrate/silent mode

13. Don’t keep your
email client open

14. Don’t keep
Twitter open

15. Keep Slack’s
notifications silent

16. Ignore office
phone calls

17. Put on
your headphones

18. Don’t interrupt someone
with headphones on

19. Start your
Freckle timer widget

20. Monotask more,
multitask less

21. Sometimes interruptions
are good

22. Go for a walk if you
can’t solve a problem

23. Ask another developer
for advice on a problem

24. Rubberducking on Slack
or face-to-face

25. Manage your
interruptions wisely

26. Thank you!

27. Questions?