Early in my career, when someone would interrupt me while coding, it would...
Early in my career, when someone would interrupt me while coding, it would stress me out.
I felt like I had a house of cards in my head. So it was hard for me to task switch, and it was hard for me to get back into flow.
I don't feel this sensation much anymore.
Here's why:
1. I work from home, so I'm interrupted less often.
2. I work mostly in typed languages and I write tests. This reduces the amount of short-term memory required for programming and increases my confidence in large-scale changes.
3. I've gotten better at decomposition. At any given time, I'm typically working on a small, simple solution.