Principle
Make interruption policy stricter as cognitive load rises
An interruption that costs ten seconds in email can cost much more inside a fragile mental model.
When it fits
- The same notification policy is used for routine admin and high-load reasoning work.
When to avoid it
- High-load work can still need collaboration; protect attention without isolating yourself from necessary information.
Why it matters
Classify work by resumption cost. Allow more interruptions during routine tasks and protect periods that require keeping multiple dependencies, hypotheses or transformations active at once. Use task complexity—not status or mood—as the reason for stronger focus protection.
An example
Answer routine tickets with chat visible; debug a multi-system data issue with only the incident channel allowed through.
Check your result
Interruption settings change with expected resumption cost rather than staying identical all day.
Keep this limit in mind
- High-load work can still need collaboration; protect attention without isolating yourself from necessary information.
Connected ideas
Useful withTurn communication checking into a scheduled task
Evidence and sources
Interruption effects differ by the type of primary task, suggesting that interruption policy should be stricter for high-cognitive-load work than for routine work.
Task categories in laboratory studies do not map perfectly onto every workplace activity.
Effects of interventions to reduce the negative consequences of interruptions on task performance: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and narrative synthesis of laboratory studies · Subgroup findings by task type