Dear co-worker, help me do my best work
Solving complex problems is hard. Complex problems require hard work in long continuous chunks. That is the only way. It is a tussle that might go on for hours, days, or months. I hate it when people don’t understand that.
Anyone working on a hard, complex problem will fully understand what I mean. But I have found that it gets difficult to communicate to others what it means.
I am writing this post for both you and me so that we can share it with people who don’t understand, and help them understand.
Dear person in my vicinity,
When you see that I am glued to my screen - typing furiously, or writing furiously on a board - I am working. Please don’t talk to me during that time. Infact, don’t even ask me “Could I speak to you for a minute?” You asking me that question will knock me out of my zone.
Even if I just said one sentence “Can we do this later?” I am gone, my context is lost. Now, I am thinking about later. Now I am thinking about the chore that I may have to do later. Now I am thinking about that other meeting where I said “later” too, and how this “later” will clash with that “later”. I am gone, the problem I was solving is still there, but I have lost all my context. I have lost. The problem has won.
Dear person, sometimes I am not furiously typing, I am just staring into the void, for minutes, sometimes hours. I am still in the zone, I am still working. Just because I am not doing any physical activity, does not mean that I am not working, the problem is resolving itself in the back of my mind. I am in the void because I don’t know what to do next, or how to act. But, I am still thinking, I am still wrestling with the problem. As I said, the problem is hard, it will take time. All I ask you is give me that - time that is my own.
Time when you don’t ask me how I am, time when you don’t ask me about the party we planned for the weekend, time when you don’t offer me a snack or tea, or coffee. I know you care. I know you want to be polite. But please, not now. Later.
Dear person, sometimes I will speak to you about the problem. I will come to you and ask you if you can help me brainstorm. Please, only say yes, if you can give the problem your complete attention. You can say no, that is okay. Maybe you will see the expression on my face change when you say no, don’t give in when I do that. I am not disappointed because of you, I am disappointed because I needed someone to solve the problem with me.
If you give in, and then have to leave 10 minutes later because you have a call scheduled, or you are not fully present, then, and only then, will I be disappointed in you. So, please, dear person, say no, when you have to. That expression on my face - I will not even remember about it in some time. I am obsessed with the problem, I will go back to it, and this memory will dissipate as if it never existed.
Dear person, a no means no. Saying no takes a lot of energy, saying it again, takes 10x more - because I am not a psychopath, you are my friend, and I feel guilty. So if you come to me with a request and I say no, that is it, that means no.
No in the present. Ten minutes later, or at the end of the day, it might be a yes, but now, right now, when there is a problem I have to solve, a no means no. Please help me solve the problem, by understanding.
How does it help me? Because for every person around me, 70% percent will not listen to the first no. If you do, you help me save a lot of energy that I can then put towards solving the problem I was solving.
Dear person, shit will hit the fan at all times, things will go wrong at all times, and a customer will be on you at all times. That does not mean all this communication needs to be broadcast to everyone around you in real time. I care about each of those things, and I want to resolve all of those things, but not right now. Right now, I want to stay in the zone and hack at the problem. So, you could put in a Slack message or delay a communication just by a bit, and then we can fight those fires.
Dear person, you might then ask, “Do I do this for all problems?”, the answer to that is No. You only do that for problems that don’t cause irreversible damage. For example, if someone is withdrawing money from our account, attacking our website, or if the police are at our door, BREAK MY ZONE, WITH PREJUDICE.
However, I have noticed that if all the people around me care about what they are doing, and such a big problem has occurred, the worry will be en-masse. The worry will spread organically. But, still, if it does not because you are the only one who notices something mission-critical going wrong, please break my zone. Let me be a bit crude, in such cases - fuck the zone.
Dear person, I know there are a lot of rules. You might ask, “So when can I speak to you?”
The answer is - when you see me chit-chatting, or when you see me switching between tasks I am doing, one minute I am browsing something on social media, and the next I am watching a video. Or when I am adjusting my chair.
In short, when you see me care about mundane things, I am available. My chair only bothers me when I am not in the zone. My social media only seems interesting when I am not in the zone. When I am browsing for food I want to order, or when I visibly worry about being hungry, I am not in the zone. In, meetings when no intense discussions are happening, I don't care about the meeting, I am not in the zone (Message me).
The reality is, that I care about mundane things, I care about what’s happening in the world, I care about cats and memes, I care about what I should eat, I care about a lot of things. But when I am solving a problem, these things become hindrances, and they pull me away from the problem. One moment, I am thinking about architecture or a plan, and the next moment when the zone breaks, the cat video on my phone seems super appealing. Because of this, what happens is I am never able to give continuous time to the problem, every time I come close to the solution a break happens, and then I have to start again. Dear person, I seek these things from you because I am weak, and I don’t have the luxury of building myself an isolated space at this time. But, this is what is required if you want me to do my best work. Please help me do my best work.