I don't think that people multitask only because they have multiple unprioritized tasks.

You could well have everything prioritized, and be multitasking between your highest priority task and interruptions.

By acknowledging interruptions, you appear responsive, even if you don't start working on them.

You can't ignore all interruptions. How do you know your boss doesn't have something urgent that will preempt your current highest priority task?

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wredcoll 4 days ago | parent [-]

> You can't ignore all interruptions. How do you know your boss doesn't have something urgent that will preempt your current highest priority task

Isn't that literally the job of the manager? Don't they know what tasks you're assigned and what priority they are?

If not, what value is the manager bringing again?

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kazinator 4 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, the manager knows what tasks you're assigned and what priority they are.

So how does that work then, if you can't be interrupted?

Boss has a new task for you which is higher priority than your current highest one.

How do you learn about this?

OK, you are not interrupt-driven, so you must poll. The boss puts the task into some task tracking system, which you check every hour.

1. Isn't the hourly check an interruption? (You actually are interrupt-driven: you have a timer which interrupts you every hour so that you poll the task list.)

Polling still requires multitasking: multitasking between the polling loop and its timer, and your higher priority task.

2. What if something comes up which can't wait up to an hour? Maybe you should poll the task list every five minutes. Then when you see it change, just do not call that a notification.

How about the scenario in which we remove management; they don't bring value. Well, you are doing a job which means doing things other people want done. Instead of your boss feeding your tasks, those customers that were behind your boss are now doing it.

Those people don't have access to the internal task system, so polling is out of the question. They use strictly messaging systems with notifications.

Nope; they only way you can escape being interrupted by notifications is if you have a manager who lets you do leisurly polling.

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YZF 4 days ago | parent [-]

Constant interrupts is a sign something is wrong.

Look at construction sites. Do you see the manager telling the dude on the crane lifting some beam up that he has to stop mid-way and go do something else? Never. If you plan and execute well this should not be a problem to start with. If it's not a problem then polling or interrupts doesn't matter. Plans can change but they don't change every hour.

The customers behind your boss generally don't have new tasks every hour either. They could require service or have some sort of problem. When your car breaks down do you call the guy who designed it?

If you're building software, and you're constantly (hourly) shuffling priorities or engineers are constantly fixing the software for customers, then that's the problem that needs fixing. It's not a tooling problem.

EDIT: In the days before Slack and being constantly plugged in people were a lot more conscious about interrupting others and we had less interrupts. The reason we have more interrupts today is that it's just too easy to interrupt people. Not because we really need them - we don't. It makes us a lot less productive.

	▲	pch00 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> In the days before Slack and being constantly plugged in people were a lot more conscious about interrupting others and we had less interrupts. The reason we have more interrupts today is that it's just too easy to interrupt people. So much this. Our org moved pretty quickly into organising and communicating via Teams when the lockdowns hit and people starting working from home. Moving that quickly meant that many basic things like messaging etiquette never really got thought about. Even now I'll still receive messages when my status is set to DND or receive complete junk openers like "You there?".