Page 39 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

26 THE ART OF DESIGNING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Wear headphones and listen to music to drown out the divorce
saga next door.
Turn the phone off! If it has no “off” switch, unplug the damn
thing. In desperate situations, attack the wire with a pair of wire
cutters. Remember that a phone is a bell that anyone in the world
can ring to bring you running. Conquer this madness for your most
productive hours.
Know your most productive hours. I work best before lunch; that’s
when I schedule all of my creative work, all of the hard stuff. 1
leave the afternoons free for low-IQ activities such as meetings,
phone calls, and paperwork.
Disable the email. It’s worse than the phone. Your two hundred
closest friends who send the joke of the day are surely a delight,
but if you respond to the email reader’s “bing” you’re little
more than one of NASA’s monkeys pressing a button to get a
banana.
Put a curtain across the opening to simulate a poor man’s door.
Since the height of most cubes is rather low, use a Velcro fastener
or a clip to secure the curtain across the opening. Be sure others
understand that when it’s closed you are not willing to hear from
anyone unless it’s an emergency.

An old farmer and a young farmer are standing at the fence
talking about farm lore, and the old farmer’s phone starts to ring.
The old farmer just keeps talking about herbicides and hybrids,
until the young farmer interrupts “Aren’t you going to answer
that?”
“What fer?” says the old farmer.
“Why, ’cause it’s ringing. Aren’t you going to get it?’ says the
younger.
The older farmer sighs and knowingly shakes his head.
“Nope,” he says. Then he looks the younger in the eye to make sure
he understands, “Ya see, I bought that phone for my convenience.”
Never forget that the phone is a bell that anyone in the world
can ring to make you jump. Take charge of your time!

It stands to reason that we need to focus to think, and that we need to
think to create decent embedded products. Find a way to get some privacy,
and protect that privacy above all.