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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

#101

Post by watwut »

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…

In tech, people who were late are rewarded.

And in fact, you can do deep work at morning a much as late, there is literally no one in tech startup at the morning.

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

#102

Post by ysavir »

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 is not a fair portrayal. This is one way to go about it, and a way which avoids the problem while running up other costs. And there are better ways.

Better ways such as keeping your phone in another room. Building the discipline to not be checking email or other sites frequently throughout the day (on phone or in the browser). Muting notification sources. And ultimately, taking control of your time.

The people that struggle with deep work are the people that struggle with unplugging, and/or live with a fear of missing out. Conquer this, and cultivating this skill becomes a much more manageable and achievable challenge.

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

#103

Post by pdonis »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #39

I'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…

> I have no audible notifications, and vibration only for actual calls.

I have no notifications at all except for calls and text messages from a few specific people.

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

#104

Post by bluGill »

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.

Depends, I know have to work with people in India. Me getting up at 7am best matches their work hours.

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

#105

Post by tayo42 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #90
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #39

I'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…

For me vibration is very intrusive notification, if the phone is on the table, the table all but explodes, a melody without vibration is a much softer notification.

The alternative was everyone using loud ring tones. Some how amazingly society managed to shame that away.

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

#106

Post by aerospace_guy »

2ion wrote: post #71
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #39

I'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…

I have my phone in do not disturb mode 24/7. The only exceptions are "VIP" contacts from close family...everything else can wait until next morning 8am when I'm checking personal stuff first thing or until around 8pm when I have my evening distraction session. So. If I do get an audible notification, it's almost always urgent, bad news.

> I have my phone in do not disturb mode 24/7

Me too. I've recommended it to so many people, but I think many are so addicted to that dopamine hit they find it hard to do.

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

#107

Post by chrisweekly »

pc86 wrote: post #88
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…

You're making huge assumptions that a) people who cultivate this skill are late night folks and not morning people; b) people who cultivate this skill are unable to do deep work during the day; c) even ignoring the fallacies in A and B, that these folks' counterparts are blind to their accomplishments and assume they're lazy because they come in late; d) that someone cannot be capable of both completing meaningful de…

I am living proof that it's possible to change from a night owl to an early riser. I used to stay up till midnight or 1am as often as not. By nature? and lifelong habit, for over 40 years I was in the "stay up late, sleep in to compensate" camp. But a couple years ago someone I respect and admire challenged me to reset the pattern. I started setting a daily alarm and jumping into a brief ice-cold shower at 5am. It only took a few days to acclimate, and nearly everything about my days changed for the better. I need 7h of sleep so if I'm not lights-out by 10p, I "sleep in" to 530 or 6. I recommend it highly. The time I spend between 5-7a is, almost without exception, much better spent than 10p-12a would ever have been. YMMV but my point is, being a "morning person" can be a choice.

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

#108

Post by dmingod666 »

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…

Not disagreeing with you entirely, but deep work can be done in office hours as well.

Nice noise cancelling headphones, schedule a chunk of 1-1.5 hours, go "do not disturb" in chat and don't check mail during this time. You can get decent amount of work done in one block. Try to get 2-3 of these blocks during the day, that would be pretty decent.

You could use a Pomodoro timer app if you want to track the blocks.

Manic time is also a great app, it keeps track of all the windows you have active, so then you can go back and tag the chunks of your time and do an analysis on when you went down a rabbit hole and for how long.

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

#109

Post by hazeii »

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…

As Harry Truman said [0], "It's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit".

[0] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/harry_s_truman_109615

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

#110

Post by SkyMarshal »

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…

This square needs to be a cube because there is a third important dimension - time.

Amazing work requires focused effort over time, first to complete, and then for lots of people to discover it.

And the time dimension is not linear, but has an acceleration. The more amazing the work, the longer it will take to complete, and during this time acceleration of people knowing about it will be near zero.

But once completed and made public, the more amazing it is the faster the acceleration of discovery.

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