Photo: Sisyphus trying to read all its notifications
I often feel that the hardest part of my programming life is to stay focused in a distracted world.
- Facebook, Twitter and a whole industry is working hard and smart to make us Hooked notifications junkies
- Group Chat is making me sweat
- Most of us are still working in Open Offices despite studies clearly pointing out that it's a false good idea.
- There are so much cool tools I could try out
- There are so much projects I could launch
How well do you cope with all of this?
Personally I have tried a lot things, and they help, but it still feels like a never ending battle.
Credits: The title is inspired by Cal Newport book
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
If you feel like it, please help me choose what I should write next.
Top comments (15)
I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique although I typically go by a 45 minute work sprint/10-15 minute walk/break instead of the typical 25 minutes. I also really love a nice focus playlist + noise cancelling headphones to help eliminate office noise and get into flow.
I always focus on one task at a time with notifications and distracting websites/apps blocked. I made this tool to automate this process. Also, I plan my day ahead and try to keep to the plan as much as I can, so I do most of the things that I planned. Still looking for better ways to focus and finding the best ratio between focus and leisure time.
My iPhone allows me only 15 minutes of social networks and I limit my information sources to a few group chats and developer communities. Adding additional friction (i.e. not having dev.to bookmark and putting the app on the third screen on iOS) helps to use media less :)
What works best for you? Would like to learn your tricks :)
I don't actually manage to avoid distractions.
But I got better at getting back on track.
I ask all the time: why is thing important?
When I feel overwhelmed, I write down a list of projects to avoid doing now so that I can focus on a realistic set of next tasks.
I make a BaseCamp or Trello board to have an overview of what I could do. Seeing it all at once helps me prioritize.
Doing meditation helps a lot. I use calm.com/
Walking outside is also great.
I avoid social media.
I wish I would avoid news, but I read too much of it.
On my smartphone I use a minimalist launcher
I write a blog post here to be inspired by what others are doing :)
I gave up TV in January 2019. I think that single change made a world of difference for me.
Yeah, no TV makes you free of a lot of things. Less social pressure, less bad news on your head means more positive thinking, less distractions which means more productivity...
Well said!
Good decision!
For me that would be giving up reading so much News, but for now I failed at giving that up!
Same here, its very much that I am obsessed that cannot end day without reading it
I have a daily list on trello, no social media during work hours, listen to music to drown out open office distractions and turn off all sound notifications as they really annoy me. If really busy will ignore email/slack for a while. Apart from the annoying pms who send a a slack message and then run round to talk to you about it!
I think this is such a hard problem, particularly pushing back against the rise of things like Slack.
We've actually started a new communication platform, that tries to let you have efficient async communications. sendmemo.app. Get the same amount of information across, but in fewer messages.
One way drive towards this goal is to only deliver messages an hour after they are sent. It sounds weird but it's totally enough to break the habit of watching for a reply. If you need a reply in short order pick up the phone.
Bit of a different approach here, but I stay focused by not working on the same thing for too long. It's rare for me to have fewer than half a dozen things on my task list, so I take something similar to the following approach:
Of course, the logic I use is a bit more complicated than what's listed above (I also factor in how much longer I think a task will take and give exclusive priority to anything past it's deadline, as well as shifting the time unit based on priority (giving longer time units to higher priority tasks)), but you get the general idea. Aside from helping me stay focused, this also helps ensure I don't forget to work on things, and helps make sure people don't end up feeling like I'm ignoring them.
Your approach makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing!
I 100% agree, dealing with distractions is the hardest part. I blogged about my journey into this concept a few years ago now, but it's a constant battle to improve. Deep Work was the second book I read on this concept. I'd also recommend the following:
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
duffney.io/DetachingFromDistraction
Thanks, I will definitely read your blog.
stayingFocused = function(){return this.LoveWhatIDo;}