It’s a common occurrence: You’re sitting at your desk, lost in thought, trying to solve a problem that’s been blocking your work all week.

Mohamed Aboelez

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Programmers often require private offices to maintain focus due to the nature of their work, which is susceptible to severe productivity losses from interruptions. This necessity arises from two types of work: one that can be interrupted harmlessly and one where interruptions can significantly disrupt productivity. Companies like Microsoft and Fog Creek have recognized this, offering private offices to enhance productivity.

Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

Very good question to ask, why are developers constrained by physical space imposed by their employers when they are building in virtual environments.

Programmers often thrive in private offices with doors because their work demands deep concentration. Interruptions can severely disrupt their flow, leading to lost productivity. Unlike tasks that can be paused without much consequence, programming often requires sustained focus to solve complex problems. It’s all about creating an environment that supports creativity and efficiency!

The article raises valid points but only scratches the topic’s surface.
First, this “Do not disturb” property often depends on the current task.
As a software developer, I am maybe currently only refactoring some basic code or writing some basic documentation, and I don’t care at all if I am distracted for a moment (or I might even welcome this).
But most of the time, it is better to leave me with larger time slots for my development work.
So days with an empty calendar are the productive ones.
And then there are the managers, who often see their calendar the opposite way. The more meetings they have on their calendar, the more productive these days look to them.
Alex Hormozi calls these “Makers” and “Managers” in this video here:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIRkQQHzsxI" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIRkQQHzsxI</a> .
Makers work best in large, uninterrupted time intervals, while Managers prefer many small and often spontaneous time slots.
Of course these are two completely different mentalities and they often tend to clash together, especially when both sides don’t understand each other.
Proper knowledge about this is the first step to reducing tensions between these two groups, and there are several ways to improve this.
Alex also mentions this in his video, and I won’t repeat all of it here (and I can’t without watching the video again ^^), but it essentially boils down to grouping the “Management sections” for the Makers together as much as possible, so that as few Maker segments are sacrificed as possible.
And one small side note regarding the “e-mail disruptions”: If you are a maker according to the definition above and you have e-mail notifications enabled for anything other than meeting reminders or e-mails with “urgent” flags, I think you’re actively sabotaging yourself.
Messengers like Slack and MS Teams are more difficult there, but I also think that it takes only a little self-discipline to not look at these immediately and only check them superficially as soon as one is not deep-thinking anymore to see if it is urgent enough to respond quickly or if it can wait until the end of the current task.

Love this piece! This brings back memories of my time at my previous job, where I frequently found myself hiding in a nearby coffee shop to work in peace.😆