The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work

Re:The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work by Noe2097 on Friday November 28, 2025 @12:26PM (#46080694)

Another take on the matter is: interruptions are inevitable, so reducing the "recovery penalty" is key, and can be learned.

That's something that you learn to do when you have a kid: suddenly, your periods of 4 hours of focus free time (for coding, exploring tech, whatever) during the weekend just _disappear_. You only get max 30 minutes of free time in a day; this is extremely frustrating initially; there is no boss to complain to, no meetings to blame, no solution but to deal with it. Progressively, you learn to switch tasks much more efficiently, by making regular check points, so that you can get interrupted any time and get back to deep work _quickly_.

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Re:The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work by cancan on Friday November 28, 2025 @12:47PM (#46080905)

Yeah this is something I want to learn more about for sure and is the weakest part of this piece. What have you found that works for you? Or is just that knowing that you’ll get interrupted will force better discipline?

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Re:The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work by sethammons on Friday November 28, 2025 @01:14PM (#46081172)

this is part of the promise of the Pomodoro Technique. Named after a tomato shaped kitchen timer, the idea is to work for 25 minutes and then stop for 5 and step away from what you were doing, rinse and repeat. Being able to pick back up becomes important.

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Re:The Math of Why You Can't Focus at Work by mejutoco on Saturday November 29, 2025 @03:26AM (#46085956)

Not OP, but keeping a log of what I am doing helps me get back to it if I lose my train of thought. I use obsidian with daily pages.

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