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Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

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Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#11

Post by MattGaiser »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #8

> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…

> the people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted.

This is what I like about work from home. I can use the distracting and busy day to sleep and deal with admin tasks like email and work until 3AM instead if I really need to get stuff done.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#12

Post by Swizec »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #8

> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…

> Do you spend your time marketing your self to others and letting people know your accomplishments, or do you spend the time doing work that will benefit others?

I like the luck surface area analogy for this.

Take a rectangle. Side A is "Quality of work". Side B is "How many people know about it". The surface area – A*B – is your luck and opportunity.

If you do amazing work and nobody knows about it, your luck is zero.

If you do terrible work and everyone knows about it, your luck is zero.

A square would be equal balance of A and B, which is okay but not to everyone's liking. You can get the same surface area with 2A and 0.5B. You can get a huge surface area with 2A and 1B.

For HN types, optimizing for big A and just enough B is easiest. We tend to err on the side of not enough B.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#13

Post by AnimalMuppet »

robinsonrc wrote: post #9
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #8

> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…

Why is getting up early not considered?

Some do. My father did. But it's just as bad, because then you're seen as leaving early. Or you don't leave early, and are working more hours, which has a cost.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#14

Post by MattGaiser »

robinsonrc wrote: post #9
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #8

> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…

Why is getting up early not considered?

I have tried this. Woke up at 1AM and went to bed at 7PM for one internship.

The challenge was that there are very rarely obligatory early morning events. There are often late day events and issues.

If I wake up early, I can't stay until 9PM without being miserable. But something requiring me until 9PM is far more likely than something at even 8AM.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#15

Post by tanseydavid »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
robinsonrc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is getting up early not considered?

Some do. My father did. But it's just as bad, because then you're seen as leaving early. Or you don't leave early, and are working more hours, which has a cost.

My personal experience is that the notion "I will go in early today and leave at an appropriately early time," fails to work out as planned 90-95% of the time.

But I really can only blame myself for this.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#16

Post by EvilEy3 »

tanseydavid wrote: post #15
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some do. My father did. But it's just as bad, because then you're seen as leaving early. Or you don't leave early, and are working more hours, which has a cost.

My personal experience is that the notion "I will go in early today and leave at an appropriately early time," fails to work out as planned 90-95% of the time. But I really can only blame myself for this.

Pre corona I was arriving at 7~ and leaving at 15. You can definitely do it.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#17

Post by ldbooth »

I tried a flip phone for a week but got tired of explaining to people why I didn't receive the picture they texted me, and I was carrying my no-SIM smartphone around for the audiobooks anyway. It does feel like taking the proverbial digital leash off, and rather than text replying I was calling everyone back for convenience. I sure have strayed socially. I shall find this middle ground and report back.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#18

Post by beckingz »

Swizec wrote: post #12
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #8

> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…

> Do you spend your time marketing your self to others and letting people know your accomplishments, or do you spend the time doing work that will benefit others? I like the luck surface area analogy for this. Take a rectangle. Side A is "Quality of work". Side B is "How many people know about it". The surface area – A*B – is your luck and opportunity. If you do amazing work and nobody knows about it, your luck is ze…

The conjoined rectangle of success.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#19

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

MattGaiser wrote: post #14
robinsonrc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is getting up early not considered?

I have tried this. Woke up at 1AM and went to bed at 7PM for one internship. The challenge was that there are very rarely obligatory early morning events. There are often late day events and issues. If I wake up early, I can't stay until 9PM without being miserable. But something requiring me until 9PM is far more likely than something at even 8AM.

Why not something less extreme? I start work at 6-7 and that usually buys me a couple of really productive hours before people start popping up. It also means you can still do things at 9PM without compromising your sleep patterns too much.

Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you

#20

Post by sumtechguy »

whytaka wrote: post #3

I used to have an Apple Watch with LTE so I could go without my phone even when I left the house. Then I sold it because I started needing it much more for work. Now I'm considering getting it again just to be able to keep away from my phone at home. How low I've fallen.

One thing that worked well for me was to uninstall the attention grabbing apps. Helped immensely with battery life too :)

Pretty much all that is left on my phone is 'augmented reality' sort of applications. Translate, maps, 'what song is that', barcode scanner, etc. Anything that pops a notification for something I do not really need to know about right now gets uninstalled pretty quickly. I then use the actual websites for those sorts of applications as I can schedule when it happens. I basically made my phone a tool instead of something that is needy like a Tamagotchi.

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