Effective Methods to Manage Digital Distraction [closed]

Question

With the plethora of communication methods available to co-workers, how do you manage to keep distractions at bay for a large enough block of time to accomplish some focused programming?

Do you quit or close all communications, have you informed people that an away message really means you are a way, or something else?

Answer 1

My e-mail is on a separate computer from my coding machine at work so that helps. Most other diversions are blocked. Besides that all I have to distract me is the phone and coworkers walking by.

StackOverflow isn't blocked, though, and that's becoming an increasing distraction. ;)

Answer 2

I like the idea of quitting stuff. I don't need to check every 15 minutes, like I do. The problem is then, with twitter, email, aim, irc, et al., there is a lot of stuff to open.

My solution is just a little bash command using the handy-dandy open command with a bunch of application names. It opens everything at once, I check it all, and quit as I go.