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The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

economist.com

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Re: The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

#2

Post by sliverstorm »

Unfortunately, the better the software is at disabling this or that, or cutting off the internet, the harder I will try to beat it. Just for fun, really.

It would be like an escape artist locking himself in a cleverly secured cell to make himself work on something.

Re: The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

#3

Post by Encosia »

Like probably most of you, I need an Internet connection to do my legitimate work. Though some of these productivity guards do allow granular control of their blocking, it's too much work to keep them in sync with my changing projects and reference needs.

I read an interesting article recently, discussing the idea of "habit fields". Basically, their assertion was that our bad habits, like checking email or refreshing HN, are tied to physical location as much as anything else. The idea isn't new or unique, but is interesting when applied to this issue of the digital shallows.

So, I've been trying to tackle the problem from that angle instead. I force myself to use an iPad or laptop for casual reading, only in the same physical areas I would normally read physical books for leisure. If I see something interesting while I'm at my development machine, I send it to Instapaper for later and close it immediately.

It's hard to quantify, but seems to have had at least some positive impact on my ability to sit down at my development machine and easily focus on productive tasks.

What's really scary is how large a majority of Internet users are being exposed to the same brain drain we are, but aren't as acutely aware of it because they're refreshing Farmville instead of HN.

Re: The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

#4

Post by robryan »

When studying for exams last week I went down to my girlfriends holiday house which doesn't have the net, only internet was 3G on my phone but it was on roaming so it would be costly to use for anything but the basics.

If you are able to locally store everything you need it's a great way to get more things done, I also seemed to sleep more normal hours because there is less to keep me distracted.

With these productivity programs, an interesting way to keep people on focus without making them physically impossible to break is to hook them up to people facebook/ twitter/a website designed for it where each time they broke the restrictions a popup asks them to write a short message on why they did. No better way to highlight any real concentration problems than let your friends see every time you can't keep to your goal.

Re: The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

#8

Post by robryan »

zb wrote: post #5

Ironically, I got distracted about 3 paragraphs in when I had to go research a bunch of those tools they mentioned. Sigh.

Yeah, usually when I'm reading about something on distraction I read it more carefully just to try and prove to myself that it's not me their referring to.

Re: The rise of Anti-Distraction Software

#9

Post by Super74 »

So the only answer to controlling ourselves is to hobble our equipment? I totally disagree. That's like saying the only way to quit drinking is to lock yourself in a room with no alcohol. Eventually you have to come out and face your problem. But I think it is more than a self control issue.

It's the bottleneck that forces us to make choices as to what we are doing at any given time and keeps us opening and closing applications or minimizing screens to fill the single desktop real estate.

Hardware needs to adapt to the amount of information out there and it hasn't. The single monitor desktop environment is 30 years old. Break that bottleneck and you will have more information under your control at any given time.

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