Sorry, meant to imply I was blocked on that specific task, which is often the highest priority one, rather than on all tasks. Unfortunately, the highest priority ones are often the most difficult and trickiest, requiring occasional questions when I run into things other have had experience in. Is the loss in time spent on high priority items worth fewer quick distractions to the rest of the team?

Oh, OK. I get where you're coming from now.

Is the loss in time spent on high priority items worth fewer quick distractions to the rest of the team?

It all depends on the tasks and your particular work environment. It's going to vary from place to place, so I don't have anything specific to tell you other than this kind of prioritization is the kind of conversation you should be comfortable having with your lead. Or at a status meeting or standup, if your process makes that the better place to ask.

I work at an agency where there is a steady stream of tickets. We are very concious of the cost of task switching. In the case where you are blocked on a task and it is left unfinished in favor of a new task of lower priority, when you finally get an answer on the first task you often have to dro the second task abruptly. So you have two unfinished tasks and all the mind balls you were juggling are dropped on the floor.

However we are also an almost entirely engineering team so there is no resource for getting unblocked that isn't bugging another developer who then drops his mind balls.

It is just the reality of it though, we have tickets and tasks to complete and we can work toward being more efficient, making sure we aren't going to get blocked befor getting started on a ticket and such. It's all a balancing act and it's important to be aware of it, but I no longer get my knickers in a knot over it.