
Losing focus: Why tech is getting in the way of work - SimplyUseless
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32628753
======
Geee
As a developer, I find it hardest to focus when I don't really have anything
clear to focus on. On the other hand, if I have clearly specced small tasks
that need to be done, it's quite easy to focus on those, even when there are
distractions. If I hit a roadblock or realize I have to re-plan something,
that's the moment when I usually lose focus.

Also, I'm not good at focusing in the design / planning stage, if the new
feature is kind of ambiguous, and I'm not exactly sure about the requirements.
I think it'd help a lot if I had some clear strategy about the design process.
Sometimes, though, not actively thinking about something let's the brain sort
everything out, and the right solution kind of emerges on it's own.

Currently I'm working on a task 'design and implement the billing system', so
here I am on HN.

Edit: I also use [https://heyfocus.com/](https://heyfocus.com/) which bounces
me back to work, if I 'accidentally' drift off.

~~~
stronglikedan
> Sometimes, though, not actively thinking about something let's the brain
> sort everything out, and the right solution kind of emerges on it's own.

This is the _only_ thing I miss about cigarettes. Myriad solutions came from
cigarette breaks. I know that other types of breaks work just as well, but it
was just something about that specific type.

~~~
acveilleux
Maybe it was the enforcement mechanism (the chemical need basically) that made
sure that sufficient breaks were taken? I notice the smokers at work have 2-3
breaks throughout the day every day while the non-smokers basically don't have
any breaks. Maybe because they're worried they'll look like they're slacking
off while the smokers don't care, they have a physical need to attend to?

------
brudgers
Reading the article suggests another reason why someone might lose focus, what
started out as reporting on research that indicated a change in behavior
morphed into a shopping experience.

The procession:

1\. Interesting but perhaps uncorroborated research

2\. Unsubstantiated possible implications of the uncoroborated research.

3\. A list of consumer goods and their marketing claims.

------
hueving
I can't keep focus because there is a different article every day on HN about
how to keep focus in a new way.

------
Cthulhu_
For me personally it's not so much incoming notifications that distract me,
but my colleagues. We're a small team of iOS and Android developers (about
seven people total), and there's an almost constant buzz of random activities
about various subjects - 90% of which are not directly relevant to me, but
sometimes they are.

Plus I have a colleague that Demands I Look At His Code Now from time to time.
On the one side I want to indulge him, on the other - could you wait until I'm
not in the middle of something? Or not show me an update every five minutes?
The headphones are there for a reason.

~~~
ohitsdom
I think there are a lot of ways you can help out the "look at my code now"
guy. Even a simple "give me a few minutes to finish up what I'm working on"
could go a long way. If you do it regularly enough, it should be a constant
reminder to him that you have work too and he may start asking you to look
"when you are free".

~~~
roskilli
I'm not usually a guy that asks for a code review to be done directly by
pinging the reviewers, but I've found on certain projects there are colleagues
who will unfortunately _never_ review any diffs I have with them listed even
as the sole reviewers until I ask them.

This is unfortunate but means that I fall behind by however long I don't ask
them to review my code for :( Others are great and I don't have to ping them
directly and they can tell how urgent a review is or isn't usually.

Not commenting specifically on any situations discussed here but just
realizing I do sit on the other side of the fence from time to time.

~~~
ohitsdom
Good point. I certainly have a long backlog of changes waiting for review from
others. I suspect that's more of a flaw in my current job's review process
though.

I do think there's plenty of room to ping colleagues with a "hey, don't forget
about that code review" before you become the "stop what you're doing and look
at my code" guy.

------
flurdy
Good way to focus is to pair up.

If you sit with someone else you may still chit chat a bit but you are
unlikely to check your email, twitter, HN etc as your conscience is likely to
make you focus on the task you are both there for.

Like pomodoro technique it is important to still take breaks to check HN etc
otherwise you go mad.

------
atom-morgan
I'm not ashamed to admit that I use SelfControl [1] when I really need it.
That way I literally can't access social media, HN, etc.

[1] [https://selfcontrolapp.com/](https://selfcontrolapp.com/)

~~~
smarterchild
I really like the use of tools that make focus the default, low-motivation
option. If you're not on a Mac, Firefox has LeechBlock[1] and Chrome has
StayFocusd[2]. Also, if you're on HN, there are built-in settings under your
username you can use to limit how long you can access the site for every few
hours.

Ironically, that's why I'm on HN now. I know I only have 15 minutes and then I
won't get to use it for another few hours. :)

[1][https://addons.mozilla.org/En-
US/firefox/addon/leechblock/](https://addons.mozilla.org/En-
US/firefox/addon/leechblock/)

[2][https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en)

------
netcan
PG's articles on this topic is very good, IMO.

The level of stimulation around us has gone way up. Our ability to deal with
it culturally and psychologically has not gone up the same way. Whether the
answer is to limit our exposure, envelop discipline or whatever, I think it's
up to the individual at present to figure out a way.

The scary trap is: It's easy to consider procrastination/distraction a little
problem. It is not.

Maybe we need to treat "distraction" like dieting or quitting smoking. That's
disconcerting because we're horrendously bad at dieting and overcoming
addiction.

 _People commonly use the word "procrastination" to describe what they do on
the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely
not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk
instead of working._ \- pg

[http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html)
[http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

------
arca_vorago
My main response to distraction is to remove myself somehow, while still being
"available". If I can't leave the office, don't stop typing to talk to
someone. They will get the picture quickly generally. It works better than
closing the door (people come in anyway, often in the middle of phone calls)
and distractions make their way through putting on a headset and a lecture or
some music. (on a side note, I have noticed that I spent quite a bit of time
listening to lectures about wide ranging subjects, and had significantly
reduced my music listening. I have noticed more productivity with music than
with lectures recently, and am moving back in that direction.)

Honestly though, for me as a sysadmin, I do no better work than in the dead of
night with no one else in the office and I just simply don't even have to
worry about external distractions. No one is calling and interrupting my flow,
or requesting my presence, (the majority of my interruptions), and I can put
on whatever entertainment I like and work away.

------
gonzo41
spend $30 (at best) and avoid all problems for ever. (true story)

Nokia 108. It has radio. It also as 1 week of batter life, by buying it, I
have more $$ for a new laptop, and the apps I don't have access to have
rewarded me by letting me walk places looking for things, sometimes not
finding them and finding other better things instead.

Also my memory is getting better without my smart phone, but I'm a fairly
visual thinker and I think that taking photo's to remember things was training
me not to do it for myself.

each to their own, I work in finance and attention to detail is paramount,
peers are less a distraction that a smart phone (which is becoming more of a
toy day by day)

------
chestnut-tree
This link might be useful to a few. It's one hour of audio (and video) of
birdsong. If you need some calming background audio to block out external
noise, this might help:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ttkx2](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ttkx2)

If you're not in the UK, someone has also uploaded it to YouTube

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNDtIwNLbao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNDtIwNLbao)

It's part of a BBC season of 'go slow' TV programmes inspired by Norway's
'slow TV' concept.

------
CthulhuOvermind
I don't get it. They used a metric of looking at different screens as a lack
of focus tool, and yet I've just had a nice 2 hour long session of developing
a script, where I kept glancing between the script and the output on 2
monitors to see if I had fixed it. By their metric I was not focused, and yet
I was just telling my colleague I had a great 2 hour long focused session

~~~
Cthulhu_
They probably meant 'window', i.e. what application had their focus. That's
probably also not a very good metric though, given that developers will often
flip between editors, terminals and browsers rapidly. It compares with 2004,
although it doesn't specify in what area; I'm sure that single-application
focus is also highly dependent on the area of work and the software used. Some
people can do all their work in one application, others need half a dozen or
more.

Also, iä! fhtagn!

------
at-fates-hands
The other option is what I'm running into in my current contract as a
developer.

Work at a large healthcare company and they have everything locked down. And I
mean EVERYTHING. No social media sites, no youtube, even 80% of the articles
on HN are filtered out. Embedded videos? No way. Even a lot of images in the
articles I read are filtered out as well.

On top of that? You have to agree to very strict email guidelines when you
sign into your POP3 email accounts and oh yeah, the system automatically signs
you out after 15 minutes. Not sure how many emails I've started and then look
up and see the connection to my gmail account was terminated and I have to log
back in to complete my email.

I won't even go into the lengthy process it took just to get Chrome installed
on my laptop.

In a way, you have no option but to focus on work, they've effectively taken
any and all distractions away from you, quite forcefully.

------
sosuke
If you enjoy the ADHD Type 1 channel you should checkout DI.fm! Been listening
to DI for years, great new content all the time. Plenty of old stuff as well.

------
cianchette
How many of you made it through this article without getting interrupted? I
only made it about 1/3 the way before I received 3 different text messages.

~~~
weavie
Couldn't you switch off your phone? Problem solved.

------
khorwitz
For a way to use tech to actually increase your focus:
[http://focusr.co](http://focusr.co)

------
gurkendoktor
pkorzeniewski - your post is dead. I work from home 90% of the time and I find
it really hard not to be distracted by technology (social media). I think that
overcrowded offices and technology are two orthogonal problems here.

But the trend still seems to be for technology to add more noise. OS X comes
with a super-chatty Notification Center that increasingly brings in noise from
your phone, smart watches are distracting by default, and I can't imagine what
kind of social notification bullshit the Internet of Things will enable. How
can we fight this trend?

~~~
sasvari

      [..] I find it really hard not to be distracted by
      technology (social media)
      [..] How can we fight this trend?
    

There is an obvious solution for at least part of the problem, isn't there?

~~~
wslh
> There is an obvious solution for at least part of the problem, isn't there?

Not without spending a lot of time configuring applications. Now I find
Android more difficult to configure than Windows Advanced Server.

For example, in the past Twitter only notified you about tweets for you, then
they started to play with the discovery stuff and send you all kind of tweets
that may interested you. Sure, I can go to the configuration and disable this
stuff but only after realizing their notification behavior changed. Thing
about this multiplied by many applications.

~~~
dublinben
Apps that you don't install can't bother you with notifications. The solution
to your problem is readily apparent.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Even iTunes(!) posts "now playing" notifications by default nowadays. It's not
trying to be useful, it's just a "look technology" demo. If you don't want to
mess around with launchd, you have to disable these pointless interruptions
for each new Mac app that you install.

It's possible to silence all your devices, but even then it still affects the
people around you. It's like insecure defaults - yes, you can RTFM and fix all
the things in the house, but I wish I didn't have to.

------
philippeback
I am using Focus@Will a lot.

Works for me.

~~~
weavie
Interesting. I tried it and didn't notice any improvement over any other
music. How much do you think is caused by the actual music and how much do you
think is because you have invested some money into improving your focus and so
your brain now has a greater incentive?

~~~
philippeback
Because with the other music it doesn't happen. Their price point is
insignificant and is not doing a placebo effect. Some channels do nothing, and
bother me. Uptempo High Intensity is what works best.

