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Comment by tekromancr | Hacker News Reader

I haven't been in the zone for months. It's mostly general dissatisfaction with my job, but it's gotten worse of late.

On an average day, there will be 4 hours of calls spread an hour or less apart for the first half of the day, with the potential for surprise calls for the rest of the day. The irony is that a lot of these calls are about why things aren't getting done.

The surprise calls are the worst. Even if I might have 2 hours of uninterupted time at the end of a day (when I am most tired and frustrated) it is impossible to get focused when there is always a looming threat of interruption. It's gotten so bad that I only get anything done late at night or over weekends, but then I am tired during weekdays and resentful that I had to throw away my freetime in order to move a project forward.

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Might not help if you're stuck in an authoritarian micro managing matrix but some tactics I've found useful before.

1) Block out 3 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon in your calendar as busy, marked private, at slightly different times each day. If asked you can be honest, many times people will not ask and simply avoid booking.

2) Leave your least productive time of day open for 90 minutes of meetings - for me this was post lunch.

3) Always reply and ask for an agenda so you can be sure you're necessary (it's a constructive way of making the requester think twice about whether they really need a meeting).

4) Often suggest a new time that is only 30 minutes long rather than the default hour.

5) Decline politely if you are not specifically necessary (Thanks for the invite Peter, appreciate being kept informed but I don't think you need me for this and I have a conflict - no need to reschedule for me).

But mainly just look for a way to leave. That company is heading down the tubes.

Simple and easy to apply. I will start using some of these, thanks

I have been in a situation like that, when I worked for a company that had me managing 12 to 30 clients directly. There is a standard solution to this problem: a ticket / issue system. If clients won't use that, and you need to keep them, then hire someone to transcribe their issues into the system, and increase your prices to cover it.

The clients might find that they prefer interacting with a more business/people oriented person, rather than a stressed out INTP. That person could also help you schedule and estimate work, without needing to have programming skills themselves; another source of stress mitigated. In theory, recovering your full productivity would lead to a net increase in the value of your services, despite the expense of this new person on staff.

I think hours per week "in the zone" is a nice proxy for measuring how happy I am in a job

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