Ask HN: What are ways to prevent distractions and stay focused on the project? - throwaway8891
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oldmancoyote
You can beat distractions, but you can't avoid them. The trick is to divide
the work into small enough pieces that you can finish one before being
distracted. Once you have organized the pieces, you can finish one, let it go,
accept a distraction, then resume working on another.

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itamarst
1\. Start with your goals.

2\. Make sure you have multiple non-contradictory goals pushing you in the
same direction.

3\. Connect your daily actions to those goals.

For example, as an employee:

1 and 2. "I have this job because I need to pay bills, and I care about what
the company does, and I don't want to let my teammates down, and I am learning
new technology I am interested in."

3\. "Building this piece of infrastructure, even if boring, is critical to
project's success because <reasons>, and will enable me to meet my goals by
building on it."

Longer version here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/05/20/staying-
focused/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/05/20/staying-focused/)

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PeOe
Time-blocking could be a help. You block a few hours where no one should
interrupt you, shut down your phone and close your e-mail client and just
focus on work. In the beginning, it´s a bit wired because you don´t need to do
anything else while working but you get used to it and become more
concentrated. More Infos: [https://zenkit.com/en/blog/why-you-should-be-time-
blocking-a...](https://zenkit.com/en/blog/why-you-should-be-time-blocking-and-
not-just-writing-to-do-lists/)

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mj_tom
I finished reading "Deep Work" recently (book mentioned in the article) and
have started using this time-blocking strategy to great effect.

The book also suggests scheduling time specifically _for_ distractions, the
idea being to turn the situation on its head so you have something to look
forward to rather than something to avoid.

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tomtompl
I was actually reading this article a second ago [https://medium.com/the-
mission/how-to-design-a-lifestyle-tha...](https://medium.com/the-mission/how-
to-design-a-lifestyle-that-eliminates-distraction-and-enables-hyper-
focus-c1f350d5b5ba)

so I thought I will share

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baxtr
This is probably the best advise I’ve read about this topic. It has helped me
tremendously

[https://medium.com/swlh/theres-no-such-thing-as-
motivation-e...](https://medium.com/swlh/theres-no-such-thing-as-
motivation-e02edd7de30)

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ndethore
By "preventing distractions" do you mean avoiding procrastination or not
giving in to the shiny object syndrome and starting to work on other projects?

