There are many productivity killers in our industry and one of the worst is context-switching. Many times we are interrupted or distracted by a certain thing like changing of priorities, meetings or we just lose focus.

It takes over 20 minutes to get back on track with a task after being interrupted.

I have asked Eugene Shulga, a seasoned Engineering Leader and VP of Technology at Telnyx to give us his insights on how to deal with context-switching!

He has quite a similar story that I do. He started as an engineer and grew to become a manager and currently VP of Technology. He is sharing tips from his own experience as a:

software engineer,manager andmanager of managers.

Let’s get straight to them next!

When I worked as a software engineer, being focused played a big part in my role. I was able to focus for 4-6 hours on average. I learned the following principles to reduce distractions and increase my focus time:

I knew what I had to do every single day and spent most of the time making that happen. My success metric was around scoping and delivering features. Everything else was secondary. I  avoided multitasking and shifted tasks based on the changed priorities.

I regularly reviewed and adjusted my priorities to reflect changing needs and ensure that I’m  focusing on the most critical tasks. This approach helped me to maintain focus and efficiency.

I learned to deal with ad-hoc requests

I figured that most of the communication, calls, and other “distractions” happened before and after lunch. I reserved lunchtime to address all unexpected tasks to minimize disruption to my main projects.

I also created 2 focus windows:

Before the standups early morning.In the afternoon after the EU goes offline. I blocked my calendar for focus work

I softly blocked my calendar for focus work. I left the busiest office hours open for scheduling and used them for handling unplanned tasks. My day was split into 4 blocks:

Early morning focus timeMeetings, unplanned tasks, lunchAfternoon focus timeLate afternoon shallow work

As I became an engineering manager and started managing teams, my job responsibilities changed. Deep focus time started declining as it was not as important. I had more meetings and more projects to manage.

I couldn’t block my calendar that aggressively and the amount of ad-hoc requests increased dramatically. I had to find new ways to improve my performance as an engineering manager.

Here is what I did:

I started writing notes before switching tasks

As the number of calls increased, I kept grouping them together but I had to make sure I didn't forget the results of the calls. I’ve had 2-3 days a week with 4-6 back-to-back calls. Writing notes after every call helped me to have a better closure.

When jumping between calls, it’s common that thoughts from your first task can pollute your focus on your following task. This is called Attention Residue and it can leave you feeling scattered.

A simple way to reduce the impact of Attention Residue is to write down a quick Status Dump before switching tasks. The note can be a brief summary that covers the result of the call and action items to follow up.

I set aside time for shallow work when my energy was the lowest

Our brain has a limited mental capacity and it’s up to us to manage it. I used low energy level time to work on shallow tasks. They required less cognitive effort and allowed me to maintain productivity without the strain of high-intensity focus.

It helped me to optimize the use of varying energy levels throughout the day, ensuring that deep work is reserved for the time when cognitive resources are at their peak

I created no-meetings days

I aimed for 2 days a week with no calls. This approach helped me to minimize the frequent shifts in attention and reduced my mental fatigue.

I used these days to tackle bigger problems that required long focus time. It could be deep research on a topic, writing design docs or new processes. From my experience, these are the most rewarding days, I felt more accomplished and less stressed.

As I started managing managers and working on bigger company-wide projects, my job responsibilities changed again. I had to see a bigger picture, solve more problems, and often with limited context.

Deep focus becomes a relatively rare occurrence if you don’t put explicit effort into it.

To be able to survive a constant input of information, I included these two things:

Constant evaluation of urgent and important tasks

There is only so much you can achieve in a day. With hundreds of things being on your plate daily, it’s easy to get lost. To mitigate this tendency, this prioritization framework helps me:

Urgent and important tasks → projects to be completed immediatelyNon-urgent and important tasks → projects to be scheduled on your calendarUrgent and unimportant tasks → projects to be delegated to someone elseNon-urgent and unimportant tasks → projects to be deleted

I learned to regularly ask myself questions:

What are the top 3 urgent and top 3 important tasks?What’s the most impactful work I can get done today? Focus on building strong habits

It's impossible to always perform at the highest level. Sometimes it’s easy to be “in a flow”, sometimes you can’t do it for weeks. That’s when you want to focus on building a habit instead of momentary results.

According to James Clear, author of Atomic Habits: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems”. Habits help you to go through the hard times and keep moving forward.

They also minimize the need for conscious decision-making. When specific tasks are habitually performed, the brain becomes accustomed to these patterns and decreases the friction of moving from one activity to another.

Gregor here again! Before we wrap up for this week, I am sharing with you my top 4 tips as well!

As a CTO I switch context a LOT during my day due to so many different responsibilities and projects I look after. I still struggle sometimes with it, but I needed to become better at it!

After many mistakes that I did, here are my top 4 things that help me to deal with context-switching:

Timeboxing of tasks - A timer with 25 min of focus work and 5 min pause works for me to keep me focused.Meeting time and maker time - I try to reserve my time and combine similar things together. For example: 4 hours for meetings and 4 hours for focus work.I don’t focus on perfect timings anymore. I rather focus on achieving daily and weekly goals.“Just DO it” attitude helps a lot. Sometimes we are all overthinking things. Once you get started, the momentum is going to help you to progress.

I noted all 4 of these more in detail in the article Biggest productivity killers in the engineering industry (paid article). You can also read more about 3 other biggest productivity killers in our industry in this article and how to deal with them (spoiler: they are perfectionism, procrastination, multi-tasking).

Thanks to Eugene for sharing his tips! Make sure to follow him on LinkedIn. He is also writing a weekly newsletter called Crushing Tech Education, where he shares his insights on system design and engineering management topics. I definitely recommend to take a look at that!

We are not over yet!

We have a special offer from Irina, the Author of

just for the readers of Engineering Leadership.

Irina has an online cohort based course: Impact through Influence in Engineering Teams.

In the course you learn the mindsets, frameworks, and tools you need to build your personal brand, build relationships, and become influential in 2 weeks.

As a reader, you are getting 10% discount. Click “I want this!” below. The discount is already applied for you!

I want this!

Liked this article? Make sure to 💙 click the like button.

Feedback or addition? Make sure to 💬 comment.

Know someone that would find this helpful? Make sure to 🔁 share this post.

Book a Coaching and Mentoring or Consulting and Advising call with me here.Interested in sponsoring this newsletter? Check the sponsorship options here.

You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

If you wish to make a request on particular topic you would like to read, you can send me an email to info.com.

This newsletter is funded by paid subscriptions from readers like yourself.

If you aren’t already, consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive the full experience!

Check the benefits of the paid plan

You are more than welcome to find whatever interests you here and try it out in your particular case. Let me know how it went! Topics are normally about leadership, management, all things engineering related, developing scalable products, building teams etc.