Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

Re:Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when th... by dmingod666 on Thursday March 25, 2021 @04:31PM (#26585012)

Not disagreeing with you entirely, but deep work can be done in office hours as well.

Nice noise cancelling headphones, schedule a chunk of 1-1.5 hours, go "do not disturb" in chat and don't check mail during this time. You can get decent amount of work done in one block. Try to get 2-3 of these blocks during the day, that would be pretty decent.

You could use a Pomodoro timer app if you want to track the blocks.

Manic time is also a great app, it keeps track of all the windows you have active, so then you can go back and tag the chunks of your time and do an analysis on when you went down a rabbit hole and for how long.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when th... by billti on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:01PM (#26586732)

I agree with this. As a manager I have a lot of meetings and few long stretches for 'deep work' in my day. Yet when I take on some work that truly absorbs me, I find the time for it. Non-essential meetings get postponed, email/Teams can survive an hour or two without a response, HackerNews will still be there at the end of the day ;-) , etc.

I do feel like a lot "distractions" in work hours are avoidable. Some of them are just habit or a dopamine fix or procrastination - kind of like checking Facebook or Twitter on your phone when something else isn't focusing your attention fully.

[ Parent | on HN ]