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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

#91

Post by zild3d »

biren34 wrote: post #52
Swizec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'd add that it really matters who know about your work. If a lot of people know you do good work, but they all have very similar skills sets, you get a lot less value than if only a few people with very different skill sets know about you. In that case, you get to become "their guy for X", and that generates a lot of opportunities. In this case, you also get the benefit that both of you can get credit for the same w…

See small world networks, these supernodes are also called "hubs"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_network#Network_ro...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_(network_science)

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

#92

Post by javajosh »

wrigby wrote: post #30
Swizec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I really like this model - thanks for sharing! A professor of mine drilled into us the idea that much of life is luck, but as he said (and I believe he was quoting someone else here) "the harder I work, the luckier I get."

Well, this is true for any iterated game with upside and minor (only opportunity cost) downside: the more you play, the more you win.

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

#93

Post by ryandrake »

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…

I like this model, but I'd replace side B with "how much you self promote your work". Someone who's side A is 1 and side B is 20 has similar opportunity as someone whose side A is 20 and side B is 1. A talented developer who isn't great at self promotion gets the same luck as someone who doesn't know what they are doing at all but can talk a great talk and enchant the execs. Surely 10x10 is better but you can linearly make up for a lack of A with a surplus of B and vice versa.

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

#94

Post by potatoman22 »

tester756 wrote: post #77

20 yo with flip phone and used smartphone maybe for 2 days, ama? when it sucks: * sending photos - rarely needed for me, but when I need it I "kinda really" need it, but you can probably work around it by buying better flip phone * not seeing emojis in SMS * when you need quick access to internet e.g for map, some info. I never needed it(I try to remember pathes/ways either via map or google maps or just ask people a…

Do you find it hard to connect to people without services like FaceTime, Snapchat, Messenger, or Whatsapp? I'm a similar age and so much of my socializing takes place on digital platforms like those, especially during COVID.

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

#95

Post by secfirstmd »

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…

This so explains me. Struggle to concentrate in day times but at night I'm laser focused. Staying up late and only getting up later in mornings. Which for whatever reason most organisations and people are awful at accommodating.

At most organisations I've been part of I've adding some of, if not the, highest value on projects, ideas etc by far. However they never see that and focus on the stupid morning stuff so often.

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

#96

Post by matwood »

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.

1AM is extreme. I wouldn't even call that waking up early, more like just staying up all night. When I was in high school I worked 10PM to 7AM, and that was terrible. But, I was able to, at a young age learn exactly how much sleep I need and what it took for me to sleep (pitch black darkness - eye mask).

Now, I consider 5-6AM early and that's when I typically wake up - haven't used an alarm in years.

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

#97

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

tbwriting wrote: post #31
whiddershins wrote: post #4

may These articles really should qualify their claims more, especially in the headlines. Otherwise countless people absorb things semi-consciously as facts, rather than hypotheses that may have some data to support them.

Truly curious: do you think every article based on a study showing strong evidence for something should have a title that implies "it can go either way"? Personally I would trust readers to click on the article and decide for themselves. Otherwise, it's a bit infantilizing, no?

I believe the article ought not be written at all, since there's barely any signal. But if you have to write it, communicating the level of certainty in the title would be a virtue. At any rate, this article is marketing, not communication.

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

#98

Post by mshanowitz »

tester756 wrote: post #77

20 yo with flip phone and used smartphone maybe for 2 days, ama? when it sucks: * sending photos - rarely needed for me, but when I need it I "kinda really" need it, but you can probably work around it by buying better flip phone * not seeing emojis in SMS * when you need quick access to internet e.g for map, some info. I never needed it(I try to remember pathes/ways either via map or google maps or just ask people a…

Also inability to reply to specific text messages.

I find this to be a very useful feature that you only get with "smart" messaging apps like WhatsApp.

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

#99

Post by ryanmarsh »

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, although many deep workers circadian rhythms naturally skew later. There's plenty of research on this you can find.
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