You already know that your phone is a portal to distractions. Social media. SMS. Phone calls, You've probably heard or read somewhere that you should limit the amount of distraction that comes from your phone. All of that is true. So, I don't think this study says anything new.
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
#62> 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…
Just move to the east coast and work for a company on the west coast. Problem solved.
From OP:
> The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted.
So I don't think that solves the problem if everyone in your office is still awake during your (later) prime working hours, although it does solve the waking up later issue.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#63> 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…
This is a fuzzy implementation of the boolean AND operator.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#64I doubt the mere presence of the phone itself is distracting, but rather it's the fact that putting it somewhere far (or allowing it to be taken from you) requires a conscious intention and is sufficiently absurd that it triggers the novelty feeling, which helps your focus. I just put my phone away in the closet. Perhaps this will become part of my new "focus" ritual.
I'd like an appliance much like some hotel rooms have where to turn the lights on you must slip your room key card in to the receptacle at the front door. I want to enter my house, pull my phone out of of my pocket and slip it into the slot in the entry way where it flips the lights on, starts charging and maybe connects to my Bluetooth speakers. Sure I can hear it but if I want to use it I need to go over there too see what's so important.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#65Can we please stop calling devices which looses our ability to focus with our brains "smart"?
A dumb phone might be a smart phone and a smart phone might be a dumb phone.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#66> 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…
If you work on a team, being reachable is part of your work. There are (few) opportunities for solo thinking, and Cal is lucky to find one. I hope you find one for yourself. But as a team, the answer "I can't reach the expert because they secluded themselves" is not acceptable. Because as a senior figure on a team, you job is to become a force multiplier for others, not a solo force. Not to do work that magnanimously…
Exactly. Of course, if you are working as an expert - and not an expert mentor - you will need time for deep work. But it's a balance of times when you can't be interrupted, and times when you should.
Ultimately, talking to the team, scheduling 'busy' times on your calendar, or letting people know in the morning that you need a day to focus on something can really make a difference. Also, setting up expectations on how long can it take for you to reach back in matters that are not urgent. And urgencies that are critical for the business always have a preference over deep work, but if the team knows you are busy, they can think if they really need you to solve it or give instructions.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#67I 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.
Ha, yeah we're in a really weird space right now where our tech is awesome and terrible. I wonder if it will get better. It would be cool to have like a feature phone but where the features are at current tech levels (and include maps), but there are no random notifications to manage, no social apps (instead of requiring you to have the discipline not to install them)... idk.
The LightPhone is working on getting there. I've been using it for about a year now as my primary mobile.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#68I'm constantly amazed at how the mainstream population uses phones. Most people tend to have phone with alarming-notifications, so they get informed that they have a message, or email or whatever. The phone interrupts them and directs their attention. They train themselves to be controlled by their phones. I'd go crazy trying to live like that. I have no audible notifications, and vibration only for actual calls. Eve…
> They train themselves to be controlled by their phones.
For many people this is fine because most everything can already been done online - remote work is huge, friendships and relationships are often formed exclusively through chat apps or VR, and they get most, if not all, of their entertainment from Netflix/YT/TikTok. For them, managing time spent on different services will make a bigger difference to their QOL than deciding to not use their phone.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#69> 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…
I also read Cal Newport and am pursuing the ability to perform deep work. In the meantime, I notice that the marginal return of deep work in a big enough company is questionable, especially for high-level ICs. A high-level IC spends most of the time in discussion and meetings, and people expect such person to make quick decisions or to assert influence within a single meeting. Therefore, the most influential ICs are those who have strong intuition and strong communication skills. Deep work can still pay off, but one needs to go really deep on both big pictures and on technical depth. I mean Wernher von Braun deep or Jeff Dean deep, which very few people possess. Maybe this is not about deep work, but about how challenging it is to be an IC.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is getting up early not considered?
A lot (most?) people find staying up late easier than getting up early. Also, if your waking hours are say 0800-2300 then you can easily work late and move your leisure time to the morning without changing your sleep schedule.
> Also, if your waking hours are say 0800-2300 then you can easily work late and move your leisure time to the morning without changing your sleep schedule.
Not necessarily. Early birds like me find it difficult to work in the evenings, despite being technically awake. I find it way easier to get up early than to stay up late, which can actually feel like torture sometimes.
As for the split, I've read it's more like 10% for each extreme with the majority in the middle, though I can't find a reference, and I suspect it's very hard to actually know.