TL;DR
Context switching is the silent killer of dev shops. We confuse "being responsive" with "being available," and it ruins our code quality. I finally built a firewall between my terminal and my clients. Here is the workflow change that saved my sanity (and my billable hours).
The Scenario. You know the one.
It’s 11:00 AM. You’ve finally entered The Zone.
You hold the entire component state in your mental RAM. You know exactly why that useEffect hook is firing twice, and you’re about 5 minutes away from fixing it. The music is perfect. The coffee is working. You are a coding god.
PING. 🔔
Client (via Slack/Teams/WhatsApp): "Hey! Quick question—did we decide on the blue or the teal for the login button? Also, is the staging server down?"
Your mental RAM dumps immediately. The structure collapses. You tab over to Slack, answer the "quick" question (which takes 45 seconds), and tab back to VS Code.
But you aren't back. You’re staring at line 42, wondering what on earth you were trying to do.
Research says it takes 23 minutes to fully regain focus after an interruption. If you get interrupted 3 times a day, that’s an hour of deep work—poofed. Gone.
In an agency setting, that’s not just annoying. That’s unbillable time.
The Agency Trap: "Responsiveness" vs. "Availability"
For the longest time, I thought being a "good" developer meant answering clients instantly. We sell service, right? We want them to feel taken care of.
But I realized we were optimizing for the wrong thing.
Clients don't actually want speedy replies to their texts. They want predictable progress on their product.
When we let clients live in our instant messaging channels, we prioritize their anxiety over our output. We turn our development environment into a support desk.
The Firewall Strategy
I got tired of shipping buggy code because I was distracted, and tired of working late to make up for "Slack time." So, we implemented a new rule: The Separation of Concerns (Human Edition).
Just like you separate your frontend and backend logic, you need to separate your Maker Time from Manager Time.
Here is the 3-step workflow we used to stop the pings without making clients angry.
1. Async is the default. Real-time is the exception.
We moved all "status" conversations out of chat. Chat is for fires (production is down). It is not for "How is the feature coming along?"
If a client asks for a status update in Slack, we politely redirect them to the project board. It trains them to look at the dashboard, not the developer, for answers.
2. The "Git-to-Client" Pipeline
The biggest reason clients interrupt you is invisibility. They can't see the code, so they panic. They assume nothing is happening.
We needed a way to show progress without actually talking to them.
We started using Teamcamp for this specific reason. It acts as a bridge between our technical workflow and the client's eyes.
- My view: I stay in VS Code and GitHub. When I push a commit or merge a PR, I reference the task ID.
- The magic: Teamcamp picks up that commit, moves the task to "In Review" or "Done," and stops the timer automatically.
- Their view: The client logs into their restricted Portal. They see the task move to "Done." They see the Figma file attached to it.
I didn't have to send an email. I didn't have to reply to a Slack message. I just wrote code, and the system told the client "It's done."
3. Batch your "External" hours
I now block out two 30-minute windows per day (Morning and EOD) to check the "Inbox."
This is where I handle mentions, questions, and clarifications. If a client comments on a task in the portal, it goes to my Inbox. I answer it during my batch window.
This creates a rhythm. The client knows they will get a response by EOD, so they stop chasing you at 11:00 AM.
The Result?
The first week felt weird. I felt "unhelpful" ignoring immediate pings.
But by week two, our sprint velocity went up by about 20%. The code quality improved because we weren't coding in 15-minute fragmented bursts.
And ironically? The clients were happier.
They had a portal where they could see real-time progress (fed directly from our Git activity) whenever they wanted. They didn't need to ping us to feel secure.
Summary
If you run a dev shop or work in an agency, protect your focus like it’s your most expensive asset—because it is.
- Stop letting clients treat you like an AI Chatbot.
- Use tools that automate status updates based on your actual work (commits/merges).
- Let the "Business Logic" (invoices/time tracking) handle itself in the background so you can stay in the IDE.
How do you handle client interruptions? Do you have a "No Slack" rule, or do you just power through it? 👇
If you are looking for the tool I mentioned, it’s Teamcamp. We call it the "Linear for Agencies" because it keeps devs happy and clients informed.
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