> How do you get anything done when being repeatedly distracted all day?

You're confusing productivity with reachability.

I currently have my Slack set to be pretty sensitive to topics that concern me, but that's voluntary. In a previous workplace, Slack was noisy af and I felt pressured to keep it at maximum sensitivity. Of course that just made me more anxious.

It depends on the job. A large part of my job is collaboration. The times that I have to put my head down and focus are the exception and in those cases I will put myself on DND anyway.

I think as a developer it would be very different.

I dont find them as distracting. I think I am good at context switching. They only become an annoyance if you were following a thread and people are discussing in it with you nothing to add, in which case I unfollow it.

I even find them sometimes helpful, they provide short breaks.

If I want to focus hard on something I can just ignore them to check later

When I was younger Constant context switching kept me productive all day long. Eventually was diagnosed as ADHD. Apparently keeping half a dozen things going at once was my coping method.

First time on medication was surreal oh how I just worked on one thing at a time.

You get less done, but what you do get done is more useful since you're paying attention to what's actually needed, so you come out ahead.