Someone walks up to your desk or unmutes on a call, and you keep typing, glancing between the screen and their face. It feels efficient, like you’re saving everyone time by multitasking instead of stopping everything. In practice, continuing to work while someone talks to you means you’re not actually absorbing what they’re saying, which usually means asking them to repeat themselves a few minutes later. Colleagues notice this pattern fast, and it quietly signals that whatever’s on your screen matters more than whatever they came to say.
