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On hacker news for the last couple of days an essay by Paul Graham has been on the front page, its called Makers Schedule, Managers Schedule.

Paul put into words something I have known for a long time, generally software developers(I use myself and people I know as examples) when interrupted tend to take longer to get back on track to where they once were. I never quite thought about it into how we allocate the day though, unless I am specifically working on a predefined schedule but looking at my workflow I tend to feel more confident about starting bigger things If I am sure I can see it through to the end in one sitting.

When describing to my girlfriend what its like when I am interrupted I always say “If you interrupt me for 15 seconds, I lose 15 minutes of productivity”. This is something I feel that is completely true and falls in line with the above article, if I start writing some code, generally I think about it for a few minutes even though I have the structure mapped out normally(kind of like the whole “measure twice, cut once” idea) and then I start coding and I like to code until I am completed what I am working on. If someone interrupts me for a phone call or to ask me a question, I need to kind of work myself back into what I was thinking about when writing the code I was writing. Generally this involves rereading the code I just wrote and trying to follow exactly what I was doing then continuing.

Sometimes I think Michael from Microserfs had the right Idea, let me lock myself in a room, you can slip kraft-singles and pop tarts under my door until I am done.

Does anyone else feel like this sometimes?