Why we're trying focus time

Welcome to another engineering update from our Austin headquarters. Today we're launching a new experiment across our distributed team to help everyone reclaim their calendar. We call it focus time, and it starts this Wednesday.

Constant interruptions kill deep work. When developers are in the middle of a complex refactoring task, a quick fifteen-minute sync destroys two hours of productive flow. Context switching is exhausting, and it leaves our engineers completely drained by Friday afternoon.

To fix this, Wednesdays will be entirely meeting-free for all cross-functional squads. You don't need to join any stand-ups, retro sessions, or planning meetings on Wednesdays. Your counterpart in the London office will follow the exact same rule, so no one misses out.

During focus time, you can finally close your chat apps and dive into heavy coding. If something seems urgent, remember that most production issues aren't actual emergencies. You can triage them later or pass the baton to the on-call engineer.

We know that some team members might feel anxious about ignoring messages. That's normal when you're used to replying instantly. However, we believe this policy will help us deliver our next software release much faster without burning anyone out.

If you need help, Matt is our point person for this transition, and Scott is managing the feedback channel on Slack. Feel free to share your thoughts with them as we test this new routine over the next month.

To be completely honest with you all, I broke our own new rule three times during the very first test week. Old habits die hard, but we'll get better together!

Read again and choose the right answer

What is the main goal of focus time?

• To increase the number of daily meetings
• To help engineers reclaim their calendar and avoid constant interruptions
• To replace all developers with AI tools

Which day of the week will be meeting-free?

• Every Monday
• Every Wednesday
• Every Friday

Who is the point person for this transition?

• Taylor
• Matt
• Scott

What surprising thing did the author admit in the final paragraph?

• She cancelled the program
• She broke her own rule three times in the first week
• She forgot what day it was

Sources: photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels