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

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

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> 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. Then they come in late because they need sleep like every one else. As a consequence, deep thought workers are seen by their immediate and responsive counterparts as obtuse, eccentric, or worse: lazy and unable to manage their time.

This really comes down to the workers dilemma. 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? Deep thought workers will bias heavily towards work that will benefit others. This benefit is often non-obvious deep thought workers will run the risk that their peers, that are more connected and more reachable, will take the credit for the results.

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.

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

It almost seems easier to pull off if you leave exceptionally early (3pm or earlier). E.g., if you leave at 4:15pm, that doesn't give any reminder that you started early.

Same. This was my schedule too, and maybe I got lucky in my workplace, but after socializing about it, nobody had any problem with the leaving earlier part.

Was easy too, 'can we meet at 4:30' 'Hmm, I come in pretty early, and like to get out the door by 3:30, can we do it earlier?' was a typical exchange.

Also, depending on your office arrangement your team-mates just know you get in early when they always see you in the office when they get in. But, ymmv, I am sure it varies from workplace to workplace.

You have the discipline to use the 24 hour nomenclature all the time. I applaud you! I had to read this twice, and loved it so much I had to comment

I find early better for few reasons, but primarily because not all work hours are the same. Waking up, working out, then immediately doing deep work before checking my phone, internet, or anything else almost feels like a super power. The best work hours of my day are actually spent working, and are almost never interrupted. Even if I do have to attend a late meeting or something, my brain is in the wind down mode and shouldn't need to wind back up. This means it's easier to fall asleep, and repeat the next day.

I used to do the stay up late thing, and while work did get done, it's nowhere close to what I get done in the morning.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I can stay up working as late as I'd like - when I'm done with my deep focus is entirely up to me. When I get into the office early the end of my deep focus is entirely out of my control. It ends when my coworkers decide to come in and start bothering me.

> 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.

> 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.

The conjoined rectangle of success.

That just made my day!

Damn you for beating me to this joke format. And I’m not deleting it.

Do we expand the rectangle to have a dimension for speed?

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.

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 work. Everyone will know them as "the guy who knows people who get things done" (i.e., good manager/leader) and you'll get credit as a great individual contributer. There's no competition for credit here.

It gets even better if the few people who know you as "their guy for X" are social supernodes--while we're all only 6 degrees of separation from each other, it's actually because a small percentage of us know tons of people, while the average is much less. If you become the "guy for X" for one of these supernodes, you're basically the "guy for X" for anyone who would ask them "hey, do you know a guy for X?"

In my career, I've had two of those types of people know me and my work--and between the two of them, they have generated almost every opportunity I've had in the past 10 years.

I could spend 50% of my time networking, and I doubt it would generate as much value as adding just one more social supernode that knows my work.

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)

Interesting, any tips on what to look out for identifying these people in the wild when you might not be able to work with them personally in the beginning?

Of the two I know, one is a general manager / executive type that surfs and used to be in a frat.

The other is a sales guy / stoner type, who always seems to have been to every new bar and restaurant and already know the owners by the time I've heard of the place.

These descriptions are just the two I know--but you get the idea. They genuinely value people, so it's not a chore for them to know people, and they never really "network". They just like people.

There's actually quite a lot of people with these kinds of traits. The trick, which is harder, is finding ones you respect and get along with, so you (the relative introvert) will keep up your end of the relationship.

A lot times, I see skilled specialists look down on the more generalists/people-oriented people as being some form of incompetent. Compared to the specialist in their field, they always are. The thing that makes these 2 special to me is that they're humble about their limitations in a way that makes really respect them. They're definitely not blowhards.

Thanks I think I know what you mean.

This is a fuzzy implementation of the boolean AND operator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic

A square is nothing more than the conjoined triangles of success.

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

Well, really, it’s less than zero, since now you also have a bad reputation you’ll need to dig out of. :)

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.

>I'd replace side B with "how much you self promote your work".

I don't agree. The problem with "how much you self promote your work" is that if you're not good at promoting your work then you'll still be at, or near, 0. Whereas "How many people know your work" focuses on the outcome. Nearly everyone is promoting their work, not all of which gets noticed. How will you do it in a way that gets noticed?

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.

A friend told me a new hire spent weeks drawing diagrams on the board and explaining to coworkers how X feature should work, after two months of zero commits he was let go.

A perfect example of a -2 X 5, zero work done but great presentation, now the guy is infamous in our circle and no one would recommend him to be hired anywhere.

> zero work done

Knowing what should and should not be implemented (where to go) may be more important than being able to move in random directions.

Once requirements are clear, the implementation becomes easier.

Perhaps, the guy should be in the product team, not in devs.

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

But I don't think that implies the type of marketing social media apps gets you is valuable. For instance, I'd think that giving talks at conferences would be much more valuable than trying to become a LinkedIn influencer. I think you can work on networking and marketing in a way that limits distractions.

Honestly yes!

in summary:

know. Your. Audience. Let them know , but speak to them in their terms. Communication is not a display of hubris, it’s a two way street

Completely true. It's a serious risk to be creating great things, impressing yourself but never making time to share with anyone else. In the modern world, you can't assume that your potential audience will see what you put out either - you need to repeat the news with a bit of variance, catch different timezones or people who don't see everything in their feed. Share a behind-the-scenes, share the finished product, a recap or case study, etc.

Ok, how do we take this analogy and qualify the types of opportunity you get as a result? If you do mediocre work and everyone knows about it, do you get a lot of mediocre opportunities? Compared to someone who does better work, and gets a smaller number of, but GREAT, opportunities? How to value that piece?

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 benefits others, but work that makes others better.

You need occasional deep work time, sure. But the whole "I must disconnect from everything, always" thing does not work for any social endeavor - and most meaningful things are of a scope that requires a team.

I wish I had a better answer here, because I too like thinking quietly for long times - but I also see that I fulfill a useful function when I'm reachable, and ultimately, you get paid for usefulness to the larger endeavor.

(This points strongly towards solo/entrepreneur tracks if isolation is your only useful mode of work, but even then, you'd be well advised to find a partner who handles the people parts)

As a technical team lead I’ve struggled more than once with the trade off between getting meaningful deep work done for myself and getting others on with their work.

Over the years I’ve come to realize it is not as clear cut of a trade off. Teams can be coached to be self-reliant and to distribute knowledge effectively, so that they have fewer urgent questions. I try to proactively take myself out of the critical path as much as possible. Documenting thoroughly is one way. Another is to use channels for question-asking and encouraging the use of the channel instead of dm. There’s a higher chance a person can answer who is not interrupted, and because everyone passively follows the channel the knowledge is shared more effectively.

Decision-making is always the tricky part. Junior devs need constant handholding and it is more about a lack of lived experience than a lack of knowledge. You need enough senior devs so that the load of constant micro-decisions for the juniors can be spread around.

The thing is that getting to the point where there is enough time for deep work is a process that takes time and that is easily undone by team churn. IMHO the only way to sidestep the matter entirely is to have a lieutenant who handles all the urgent matters, but I’ve only had that once and in retrospect it was hardly a fair situation.

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.

This is my main issue with Newport's work. It's all great advice but not much of it applies to a regular office worker.

Yet we're increasingly figuring out not all things have to be synchronized, and many people can save themselves while thrown in the deep as long as there is documentation.

It's not that I disagree with the premise. Rather, I believe as a society, we've largely taught ourselves helplessness and failed to document properly how things are supposed to work (both when requesting features and checking how existing things work, both functionally and in code). Add short tenures onto this, and it makes for a system which needs a lot more synchronized "are you available" time than need be.

Additionally, maybe I'm biased, but many juniors don't need as much mentorship as the average senior dev here likes to claim once they're settled in. Again, it might be backfiring in terms of learned helplessness, where they won't try and solve their own problems first. Furthermore, it stimulates not documenting processes in a way that newcomers can learn, where seniors become glorified encyclopedias. Most juniors I come across stumble here: not when the problem can be found online, but when the problem is a piece of domain knowledge / in-house framework documented extremely poorly, and requires an extensive amount of time to communicate.

Combating this may cut down required mentoring significantly. Now imagine you might be able to cut down regular mentoring to a 1-2h window. On a regular 8 hour day, that leaves a whole 6-7h to plan at your own convenience. This could have different setups as well (two days with high accessibility, three days of access only in critical cases). Most of all, as long as we don't make the deep dive and continue our existing ideas, we're only setting ourselves up for a selffulfilling prophecy. It's only after we try, we can accurately make such bold claims.

I don't know who defines what work is but "being reachable" at all times seems like an arbitrary line in the sand. It's pretty annoying to be dictated what is and isn't possible.

For example, what about "being reachable" four days a week, or 7 out of 8 hours a day, or using the toilet?

Bright line rules like these are usually fake and promoted by people that benefit from them.

I did exactly this early in my career: Stayed up late, got work done outside of business hours, suffered the consequences.

Later I started being more assertive about my time.

Meeting request in the middle of my core work hours? Decline as busy, suggest to move it to a lunch meeting or offer to call the person after working hours (Everyone chooses lunch meeting instead of after hours).

People tapping me on the shoulder to ask a question while I'm wearing headphones? Before they can speak, I politely say that I'm in the middle of something I need to finish and ask if it's urgent. It's rarely urgent, but people quickly learn that it doesn't pay off to interrupt me.

Constant deluge of Slack messages? I set a status that I was busy but would be available to chat during certain hours. When I'm pinged, I quickly respond that I'm in the middle of something but I'll get back to them later.

The key was to realize that taking charge of my own time didn't have the negative consequences I thought it would. In my mind, I thought declining people's meeting invites or refusing to prioritize other people's demands would end my career, so I let people walk all over my schedule. Reality couldn't have been further from the truth. Nearly everyone was very understanding and very few people interpreted my responses as rude. Obviously you need to be polite and professional, no matter how aggravating the interruptions are.

Carving out dedicated meeting and socializing time was also important. It's unlikely that I'm going to sit in one place for 8 straight hours anyway, so allocating two blocks of time each day for meetings and catching up was helpful. Making it predictable and communicating it to others made it easy for everyone else to understand. I even marked it on my shared calendar.

> People tapping me on the shoulder to ask a question while I'm wearing headphones? Before they can speak, I politely say that I'm in the middle of something I need to finish and ask if it's urgent. It's rarely urgent, but people quickly learn that it doesn't pay off to interrupt me.

You can often shorten this to, “can you come back in fifteen minutes?” This is less likely for them to try to pick your brain about whether their problem is urgent or not.

Of course it depends on who is asking. If the head of IT is standing there, and you don’t usually hear from IT, then it could be something bad. If your intern looks like they just set the building on fire, also might be important.

You became more assertive of your time by giving up lunch and off hours?

No, I enjoy having lunch with my coworkers. Good way to catch up without as much wasted time as a meeting.

If you prefer to eat lunch alone, adjust accordingly. I was providing loose guidance, not a strict prescription.

I'll be honest I didn't even see it as you recommending any action at all. Each to their own and that I guess

One of the first companies I worked at (a startup) had a strict protocol on how to ask someone for help.

The chain was basically:

a) ping them over IM. Do not grenade them with your problem. Ask first if they have time to help you:

No? Try fixing your problem on your own for another 20-30 minutes.

Yes? Be short and to the point. If its a coding issue, list all of the solutions you've tried first and what the issue is.

Allow the person you are asking to set the parameters of the help:

a) how fast can this be done? Can I do this over IM?

b) does this need a webex or meeting to figure out?

c) how much time will the meeting require to solve problem? Estimate and go from there.

d) do any of the previous infringe on your current work? Have a person set up a meeting for later in the day and then leave them alone.

It was literally taboo to go to someone's desk and ask them for help. It was hammered into people that work comes first and any distraction costs time and money. Even when you go over and tap someone on the shoulder? They have to mentally disengage with their work to speak to you. That's precious time they are losing. Same thing after they've completed even a 5 min conversation, they have to get back to whatever they were doing which also takes time. There was some study that said just a handful of these interruptions can cause a company millions. When you're at a startup, every dollar wasted costs the bottom line.

a) ping them over IM. Do not grenade them with your problem. Ask first if they have time to help you

This wouldn't work with me. I don't respond until I know what I'm saying yes to.

Me either. Getting some critical job done is impossible during normal working time when I get a lot of direct questions over slack and have to spend my time on meeting and communication.

The hard thing is that it's not easy to explain critical job' result to the team. Most people simply think that's [my] job.

The very annoying thing to me is that people tend to ask via PM. Why don't they just ask question on common group where there are a lot of people in the team can help? Oh... that's then Slack @here and @channel are problems. They are using that too much, and people don't care anymore lolz

I just delay any response for any new topic or I do not respond at all if that is just "Hi XYZ". Often I see "nevermind/found it/sorted it out" after a while.

My rule of thumb is 15 minutes. I also never send "Hi XYZ" alone and then form a question. "Hi" is part of question message (Shift+Enter ftw!) and often while forming the question sentence with some guiding information I manage to find an answer too. No message send, win-win.

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.

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.

What does IC mean here?

Individual contributor.

individual contributor (aka someone judged on their own work output, not the output of a team like a manager or director)

I first read it as Integrated chip, lol.

Integrated circuit?

https://blog.mitchjlee.com/2020/your-writing-style-is-costly

My bad. You’re right, and thanks for the link. Unfortunately the window for editing is closed.

It's okay to use a non-standard abbreviation if you spell it out the first time it's used followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, like "individual contributor (IC)", and then use the abbreviation in the rest of the text.

Really well formulated. Love your explanation and pointers of worker dilemma.

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 deep work and be lazy and unable to manage their time.

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.

> I used to stay up till midnight or 1am as often as not.

That's not a night-owl (midnight I mean, 1am might barely be).

Fair enough. But FTR the 12-1a habit was itself a form of restraint against my prior tendency to stay up much later than that -- as a parent of school-aged kids, w/ no plausible option to sleep past 7a or so. Staying up till 3 or 4 and getting less than 4h sleep would've been a non-starter.

Yeah, I feel the pain. I usually go to sleep between 3-5 and need 8-9 hours of sleep. If my work didn't allow for very flexible schedule I fear I'd also need to resort to extreme measures (cold showers - brrr).

Same - part of it may have been natural shifts in circadian rhythms - in college I'd often be up until 3am during the week, not even particularly busy. Just not tired, so I stayed up. Any class up to and including 10am was an active struggle to get to. Now I am regularly up before 5am to work out and typically start work around 6:30.

People absolutely have natural tendencies one way or the other, but if you want to change you can. Too many people approach it as if they're stuck in one or the other.

Yes, you can do deep work late at night.

The elephant in the room question is - "what are you doing during the time that is allocated for work?"

I think deep-work is then a secondary thing. The person needs to solve other more important problems first.

1) are you over-commiting? 2) Should you be more assertive with taking up more work? 3) Are you able to set expectations of people that wait for your work and then also communicate when there are delays? 4) Do you have problems delegating work? 5)...

b) people who cultivate this skill are unable to do deep work during the day;

For me, it was the other way around: inability to do deep work during the day (due to all the distractions already mentioned) forced me to cultivate a 10h-19h work schedule, with the accompanying sleep schedule (roughly from 01h-09h).

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.

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.

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.

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.

I agree with this. As a manager I have a lot of meetings and few long stretches for 'deep work' in my day. Yet when I take on some work that truly absorbs me, I find the time for it. Non-essential meetings get postponed, email/Teams can survive an hour or two without a response, HackerNews will still be there at the end of the day ;-) , etc.

I do feel like a lot "distractions" in work hours are avoidable. Some of them are just habit or a dopamine fix or procrastination - kind of like checking Facebook or Twitter on your phone when something else isn't focusing your attention fully.

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

The problem with deep thought is you can waste a lot of time thinking about something that is no longer important. If your project is doomed to be canceled for reason outside your control there is no difference in output between someone who does nothing (ie should be fired for lack of work) and someone spends his days working hard.

Those who do better networking tend to be onto those trends. They will find out about opportunities where 10 minutes of focused work will net a large [sale, or other win for the company] for the. 10 minutes of the right work can be far more valuable than a whole month of deep focused work. (though that 10 minutes probably builds on - and takes credit for - someone else's months of deep work)

There is no clear win here. However if you like to be a deep focus person you should force yourself to spend some time every week figuring out the pulse of the company so you are at least doing useful work.

There's a Richard Hamming quote, along those lines, that I like. I do keep in mind he was surrounded by brilliant and stimulating people at Bell Labs. Some closed door or deep work is necessary to shut out the truly unproductive aspects of modern office work. Doing this without seeming rude is an art.

"I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."

The way you describe the harm it causes to the employees sounds, to me, like a managerial problem.

My company has several of those "works late, comes in late" employees, and none of them are seen as lazy.

We have managers that recognize and re-enforce to the other teams the work that we do and the people we unblock and the wins that we're able to make.

I just completed one of my own reviews where I was lauded loudly as a person that unblocks other people - while my own official tasks are relatively light because my primary task has become unblocking others - and a coworker was recently promoted due to her weird, off-hour work.

Why? Management understood our strengths and re-enforces them, protects us from nay-sayers and rejoices openly about the work that we do.

That way, we can keep working in the areas we're good at, in the way we're good at it, and we're given the recognition for our work through our managers.

With a good manager, you shouldn't have to be constantly trumpeting your own skill, they should be revealing it for you.

Managers, and I'm sure many of you are here on Hacker News, this is one of your many, many jobs.

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

Haha, I feel so called out. I have been up for 2 days straight at this point, and it has been incredibly productive.

Sometimes I wish I could summon my ability to do deep work during the day, but it is just so hard with all the meetings and ideations (I love them too, but can't stay up 24x7). My body can't take this kind of late-night abuse anymore, so I feel like I am running on borrowed time.

Hopefully I will learn to do focus work in the day at some point. Has anyone here successfully made that transition ?

I have; I found that when in a (physical) space where I could guarantee nobody would interrupt me, I can work like it’s night.

Brilliantly true.

I've found that it is possible to do during the day, but you kind of have to put your phone away, and also clamp down on browser.

HN is unfortunately a distraction!

Make yourself 'feel' like it's a Monday or Friday Holiday, where nobody is in the office, so they can't bother you, but it's not a 'weekend' either. Those days are productive.

I agree with this sentiment. Even if you manage to get to bed at an early time, it seems like the modern workplace still doesn’t reward deep focus. It rewards frequent context switching, being constantly available to answer pings in slack, providing updates to managers just “checking in” with you, attending tons of meetings, and being able to juggle numerous things going on at once. I can adapt to all that, but the 1-2 hours of actual work time I could squeeze out of any given day didn’t allow for much deep focus.

>> As a consequence, deep thought workers are seen by their immediate and responsive counterparts as obtuse, eccentric, or worse: lazy and unable to manage their time.

Literally just had this on my year end review. I won't go into the useless stack ranking the company I work for uses, but none of my project work was ever late (it was actually either right on time or early) but because I'm a night owl and do a majority of my work off hours, I'm considered "unavailable" when other regular folks need to get a hold of me because I'm not online at 7am like everyone else. Yet any issues are resolved in a timely manner regardless.

I literally got a lower rating because my manager said there was a "lack of effort" during business hours and that other team members said I was "aloof" and "not present" during long managerial meetings.

I had to spend most of this week refuting what my manager wrote on my review since if I decided to move departments, other managers will look at it since its a typical process managers to do when hiring internal candidates. Pulling in copious amounts of documentation to refute what he was saying cost me a days work, but in the end, I had no other choice.

I'm still bitter about the whole thing.

Part of being an employee means towing the company line. Even when you don't feel like it. It's a sham you are collectively expected to endure. Is it any wonder that the most successful employees are the ones who succeed in reading and adjusting themselves to this requirement?

That said. I feel and connect with your rant at a personal level. For reasons I won't share on this post.

I know you didn't ask for any advice and yours is just a rant. Based on your review and what you say i.e you had to spend a day just to refute it. It would be wise to increase interviews with other prospective employers and other professional opportunities.

Your efforts are much better spent where they are valued a bit more than this.

Walk slower or quit. The efforts you have put in have not been apprechiated.

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

cite? Your implication as stated above I believe has not been proven. Doesn't Cal go into some detail about people who have cultivated this skill; perform deep work, and then only do it for "normal" (or even more often, far less than "normal") work hours and thus have the rest of the working day to do whatever else they enjoy?

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. Everything else: I'll see it when I see it. I tend to think of it as receiving a letter -- I'll see it when I check if there's any post, I don't need to be interrupted right away. Personal space and all that.

It just seems so mentally unhealthy. The same applies to sleeping with your phone in the same room.

It's about identifying healthy boundaries, and apparently most people can't do that when it comes to smart phones.

We use ours like regular phone junkies to stay connected/dick around/navigate life throughout the work day. But we use gps/time triggers to shut off notifications during our time most likely to be used for deep focus, and/or enable airplane mode at night, when at home, on dates, or with family.

That way the silence is natural, and we don't have to rely on our own self-control to do the right thing.

I'm the same way. It's crazy when you see people out in public that are having some kind of text conversation and their phone makes a loud obnoxious beep with every message. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time my phone was off silent mode.

> 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.

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.

I have found that I am involved with too many things with too many random people for that to work, so instead I flip my phone to silent mode whenever I am doing something interesting or with people, and then if somebody notify when when I am browsing hn, that is probably fine.

I have DND on during the night and work day. Like gp, if somebody can make it sound at 4 A.M, I want to be there to take the call, but it is almost certainly bad news.

I do something similar but have my DND hours for my work apps set on outside work hours and at night. If someone really needs me, they can call me twice in a row to override the DND and sound my ringtone (at least on iOS).

> The only exceptions are "VIP" contacts from close family.

Curious how you configured this? I'd be interested in this as well.

If you have an iPhone, you can flag certain contacts as allowing "Emergency Bypass". This lets their calls (and text messages if you flip another switch) vibrate and/or ring your phone even if you're in do-not-disturb mode.

Can't speak for Android, but I'm sure it has a similar feature (and due to system access it allows third-party apps, maybe you can do the same for third-party chat apps as well).

In DND settings, there’s also option called “Allow Calls From” which user can choose from:

  >Everyone
  >No One
  >Favourites
  >Specific Group

Worth noting in iOS any contact may bypass DND by calling twice in quick succession even if the contact isn’t starred.

In Android, you can have starred contacts. Only their calls will get through.

In Android you can configure Do Not Disturb to allow notifications from specific apps. I'm very curious if iPhone can do this.

Indeed. I have configured almost all apps on my phone to alert silently, leaving only a handful of applications that will actually vibrate my phone, that way when I feel my phone vibrate I know it's something I care about rather than trivial updates that might be of some interest, but can be viewed in the alerts tray whenever I get to it.

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.

I hate the sound of my wife's iphone on vibrate. She has it on silent but then I hear this annoying sound from across the room. I would definitely be a fan of some nice sound instead of vibrate or the common ping sounds.

The default iphone notification sound is so incredibly loud. Especially when someone sends multiple messages its like its striking a bell inside my head.

I find the Apple watch to be the least intrusive notification method. Its just a light tap on the wrist. And it uses different taps for different things. Receiving a text message is different to a call and different to the message telling me to stand up for a minute.

It also doesn't make any sound so its not distracting others in the office and it can always be felt while vibrations in my pocket are not always noticeable.

> And it uses different taps for different things. Receiving a text message is different to a call and different to the message telling me to stand up for a minute.

And the "low battery" warning is heart attack inducing, heh.

I really like the Apple Watch, they just need to fix the part where multiple notifications in a short period of time effectively DDoS you from being able to use the damn thing.

> 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.

Glad to see there are other people like me, who use a phone like "receiving a letter" - no interruptions, just checking it occasionally when I'm not busy.

I'm with you on trying to have minimal notifications. I have one personal email configured only for important mails, phone is set to vibration only since years (TBH I don't even remember what my ringtone sounds like) and my phone is always face down, which means DND mode. That being said, I relate with what the article says. I find myself checking my phone every 20 minutes or so for notifications and the occasional Twitter/Instagram scrolling. It is distracting to me!

I was maintaining an esports community/business on the side for a few years with discord and social media profiles. I eventually just turned off all notifications as it was too much. I would instead check app notifications and apps directly a couple times a day unless there was an event/tournament coming up that required a faster response. I can't imagine having to live with all notifications for these platforms enabled and responding immediately.

I'm all about minimizing notifications - however, a letter is a terrible way for my friend to let me know they are running ten minutes late to meet me, or for my neighbor to ask for a quick task, etc. So texts still alert me.

It's not the phones people are overwhelmingly interacting with.

Unless you're watching someone bored in public transport reading the news on the phone or something, phones are just the mean, not the end.

There are people at the other end - colleagues, friends, loved ones. They are talking to each other, sharing experiences, having fun, being in love, agreeing on what's for dinner, planning, coordinating, organizing, updating, ... and a lot more other, maybe banal things.

At least for me, friend is a friend, loved one is a loved one, and it doesn't matter if we communicate via text, photo of a cool thing one of us just saw or in person, I'm going to be happy to hear from them.

I have to admit, just yesterday I changed my phone notifications to audibly (sound or vibration) notify me only for calls of any kind. Signal still gets a silent notification with no details but every other app, including email, doesn't really deserve my immediate attention. Will that piss some people off? I doubt it but maybe. Will I spend less time on my phone, for sure!

I was with Android for a while but inherited my wife's iPhone. Since I found it so annoyingly loud I asked that she put it on mute like my phone and she didn't mind. Apparently it was on mute so long, the physical mute switch won't turn back on! It flips back instantly if I try.

Anyway that was a mixed blessing because I found the iPhone's vibration to be barely noticeable compared to my old phone so I missed a few calls that I wanted to take. I had to use accessibility features to unmute the device then slowly turn off each notification as it annoyed me. I'm fairly happy where I have it now.

The problem is boredom. We've become accustomed to having an instant excitement dispenser, and are now addicted to it. Boredom has become even more uncomfortable than it used to be, because we're no longer used to being bored.

No study or links to cite, just my observation.

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 don't think a single study showing strong anything is of much use beyond, "Hey that's interesting, I would love to know more!"

Articles summarizing studies as described should use language accordingly. Otherwise you risk certainty-addicts swarming and shouting down reasonable circumspection.

>article based on a study showing strong evidence

You mean a blog that loosely cites two papers of unknown quality and draws novel conclusions not from the papers?

Yes, it absolutely should not be stated as fact.

> Personally I would trust readers to click on the article...

This is already contrary to all available evidence.

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.

Note how many upvotes this article has, and how long it has been on the front of HN.

How many people have skimmed the the headlines and had this assertion register semi-consciously as a fact, whether or not they even looked at the article or comments.

Misinformation noise.

I feel "Focus" as a function of overwhelming want or overwhelming need is a better proposition than as a function of tips and tricks. I've had times when despite all the raging distractions I've got the work done because I was so invested in it and there have been times when despite being in a perfectly isolated, no distraction environment, I have failed to get the work done because there was no real urgent need for it to be done, intrinsic or otherwise.

I would say work on things based on constraints, that are beyond the artificial boundary of productivity tricks, like an overwhelming desire for action or an imminent deadline from an external enforcing agent; differentiate between want, want-to-want, and have-to-want; and mainly rest well, for energy management is key in working well.

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.

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.

E-ink? Brilliant.

I read a blog post [1] the other day about someone who was using their Apple Watch as their primary "smart" device. Aside from pictures (and maybe a few other features?) you can effectively have all of the utilities of a smart phone without the temptation to get sucked into the device. I've been slowly transitioning to this and have been enjoying it so far.

It doesn't really help with the notifications, but you can effectively cut out most of the noise via basic iPhone settings.

[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/comments/m730dz/i...

I've stuck with the flip phone all along with no regrets. Pictures can be forwarded to your email for later viewing (though at a reduced resolution). There seems to be no way to see emojis, though, as they all appear as little squares (whether you perceive this as a benefit or a drawback).

You have motivated me to try it again... Switching the sim today. The hands free calling while driving is another feature to solve for. I'm going wired headset.. 2000 is back! =)

The best part of using a flip phone is that you slowly realize that none of the notifications we are constantly distracted by are that urgent. It's a good way of cutting down the social media fat. Most of the digital interactions we have in our day-to-day are really because you were online at the time, which could be interpreted as you are available for some têtê-à-têtê.

I went the feature phone route, bog standard Nokia with a 64 GB SD card in it for music/etc.

I managed three months and then a customer sent me an iPhone because sending SMS's was too much of a hassle when everyone else was on Slack 24/7, and because their authentication scheme was changing and they required a smart phone app for 2FA.

Years later, I still refuse to put Slack on my phone (now an Android), but I can't get away from various app requirements connected to my business number, and I can't be bothered to have two separate phones when I have two SIM slots in my phone anyway.

They tested the “brain drain” hypothesis that claims the brain has a limited capacity of cognitive resources, and the mere presence of a potential distractor can occupy some of those resources which undercut cognitive performance.

Sounds like something straight out of Conan Doyle

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lessons-from...

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." "But the Solar System!" [Dr. Watson] protested. "What of the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

I believe that this, rather than neuroplasticity, is the main explanation for why children and teens are able to acquire language far easier than adults. The latter have far more to worry about and no one spoon feeds them words all the time.

>> "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

I really like this for a different reason. It’s one of the reasons I can appreciate flat-earthers (or other discordian-ish reality tunnels) from a slightly more philosophical standpoint: it really doesn’t matter

I upvoted you but, also, it kind of does matter. How you orient yourself toward science and empirical experience says a lot about whether you're going to fall for some BS misinformation campaign, fail to vaccinate yourself and your children, etc...

> How you orient yourself toward science and empirical experience

few pro-vaxxers have a detailed understanding of biology or science, nor empirical evidence wrt vaccination, or the education to interpret it.

The difference is not one of understanding, but trust, and the capacity to believe in "conspiracy". The problem is, sometimes conspiracies do exist (prism) and science is becoming increasingly politicised.

That said, flat-earthers are categorically different, b/c it has nothing to do with science: a round earth can be demonstrated fairly easily in laymen terms, and the scale of the conspiracy to confound a round-earth map is also disproportionate.

That quote has always bothered me. He uses incredibly small details to deduce incredible things, but thinks the solar system will never have any influence upon his casework. I can imagine scenarios where people thought the wrong things because of what the sun was doing, how far the sun was from the earth at the time, etc etc. It does matter, just not often... Much like the rest of what he uses to deduce things.

It's like saying he doesn't care what clerks do in their jobs, but then deducing that someone's a clerk by their hands. He's have to know what they do for that, even if it doesn't otherwise affect him.

That said, I agree with you... Mostly. I don't really care what someone believes, but there are some beliefs that tell me people aren't critical thinkers and will just believe things they're told... And then stick to it no matter what. I definitely treat those people differently for my own protection.

If flat-earth was the only thing that person believed that was weird, I'd likely just laugh and overlook it. But so far, I've never found that to be the case. They go in for a lot more.

The show Sherlock shows that actually this solar system knowledge helps him in the end of the episode :)

Right. Even within the UK, there are observable differences in the day between southern and northern points. If, say, someone from Kent was to fabricate a story in Glasgow set around twilight, you'd immediately notice their timescales are off.

You could technically remember that without knowing why, but for real people organising facts like that under "things that are true because the earth goes round the sun, is tilted, and is round" is easier. A skilled worker organises their knowledge.

This says "brain", but seems to be talking about attention. Not everything works like that; I find the less I depend on memory, the worse my memory gets, the more I use my memory, the better my recall is in general - hence not using memory doesn't "free" it up at all; and this applies not just to explicit (intentional/conscious) recall, but spontaneous remembering ("Oh, I just remembered/realised something") too.

This phenomenom is at times called the green lumber fallacy: https://fs.blog/2016/11/green-lumber-fallacy/

Is it skillful or foolish to call to mind a quote from a story said by a fictional character, instead of something which helps you in doing your work?

Reply with something from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:

"Professor Quirrell's expression became more serious. "Mr. Potter, one of the requisites for becoming a powerful wizard is an excellent memory. The key to a puzzle is often something you read twenty years ago in an old scroll, or a peculiar ring you saw on the finger of a man you met only once. I mention this to explain how I managed to remember this item, and the placard attached to it, after meeting you a good deal later. You see, Mr. Potter, over the course of my life, I have viewed a number of private collections held by individuals who are, perhaps, not quite deserving of all that they have -"

https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/26

I 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.

On my busiest days I'd lock my phone in my desk drawer and put the key somewhere else. A bit radical, but it really worked

I find that the mere presence of the phone is distracting. It's subtle and I didn't notice it until I physically started putting it in another room. I don't mindlessly pick it up and opening an app.

what part do you find distracting? Does it go off with sound or vibrations?

I set my phone on the table/desk and completely forget about it. 4hrs later I see I missed 6 messages, a few I would have prefer to respond to when they arrived.

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.

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.

I never had an apple watch but precisely this is the reason I want one. Leave that stupid phone somewhere but still be reachable by my family.

I like my Apple Watch, but I use it almost exclusively for fitness (workouts, trail running, etc).

I decided early on to remove all the other things -- apps, notifications, etc. I get Messages, but that's about it. I like the balance, and it allows me to keep my phone farther away in a bag than before.

Plus with the WorkOutDoors app, I can go on runs, with maps, without my iPhone. Love that.

Why not use a garmin in that case? I only use my fenix when I work out, as I strictly wear mechanical/quartz watches the rest of the time.

The UX is definitely not anywhere close to an apple watch, but it is more suited for physical activity and tracking that data.

I do low heart rate training for long distance running. Only iPhone apps with a chest strap or the WorkOutDoors app tell me when I’m above or below my specified heart rate zone.

I was considering a fitbit because of this, i like my mechanical watches too much. Think that might work on my other wrist, while still wearing my regular watches.

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.

The problem for me is the browser. Unfortunately iOS doesn’t let you put safari into restricted apps on screen time.

I’ve managed to train myself to regard my computer mostly as a work machine but that just means my phone is my mindless browsing machine.

I just checked and was able to set a time limit for Safari on both ios13.3 and 14.4.1. Type "safari" in the search box at the top of the list of categories that comes up when you go to set a new limit, pull the list down to reveal the search box if it doesn't show up at first.

Have the same issue. Like I deleted Instagram on my phone but I’ll just use the web version. Also, I think Android’s digital well being let’s you restrict websites on the browser

Hey, you can do this. In Screentime, turn on Content & Privacy Restrictions and switch off Safari in “Allowed Apps”. game changer!

I can not stand using the built in browsers on phones so I guess I am in luck :)

Either the pages are designed with you having a mouse. Or they are infinite scroll time sinks. Ok maybe not that bad but sometimes I feel that way... Also my eyes have recently decided 'oh you want to be able to see?! that aint a good idea anymore'. I went from being able to read 4pt to 12 to 15 being readable. You can guess how well that is working on a phone...

I don't have the LTE version, but thinking about getting one for the same strategy. In the meantime, I'm just hiding my phone in drawers/backpack etc to keep it hidden and within range of my watch.

To enable deep work, I've started incorporating offline sessions (1 hour long on average) into my day ("offline pomodoros").

I only go back online when I need a mental break or when I'm completely blocked.

It seems to help with productivity and improve my well-being.

I've also got a second used phone which I use for work purposes (e.g. 2FA, Calendar reminders and production alerts) to reduce distractions. I don't find the work phone's presence to be distracting.

I've found a very interesting result in one of the papers[1] they linked in the article. The group of people with the highest phone dependence have the highest available cognitive capacity score when they leave their phone in another room (see Figure 3. Experiment 2).

Somewhat absurdly, this would suggest that the best strategy would be to get hooked on notifications and then consciously leaving your phone in another room when you need to work/focus.

[1] https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/64...

I've been experiencing Phantom Vibration all morning. Talk about distracting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_vibration_syndrome

I used to experience that, but it's gone away since I moved to never having vibrations on my phone. Highly recommended!

I took my phone out of my pocket for hours this morning, the feeling kept going. Not sure what I'm expecting.

Give it a week or so, it will pass.

In my experience, not having the opportunity/ability to access my phone has been the only solution that truly lets me disconnect and focus. I've been working on a locking wireless charger to keep your phone out of sight and access, I'm looking to launch soon on Indiegogo: https://pausbox.com/

I think just about anything "more interesting" reduces my ability to focus even when not distracting me. It just-so-happens my phone has convenient access to all those things Personally, in some cases, getting rid of a single distractor helps but usually only when there's nothing else conveniently available

Get a smartwatch. Not kidding.

It might sound stupid, but since I have a smartwatch and only filter the mot important notifications on it (calls, SMS), all other notifications can sit on my phone & wait for hours. Whatever. I still can be reached in an emergency.

I don't event check my phone to get the time, duh, that's a watch !

Or a fitness band like MiBand. It works similarly and battery lasts almost a month.

HN reduces my ability to focus even when it doesn't distract me.

Can 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.

> This cognitive capacity is critical for helping us learn, reason, and develop creative ideas.

I agree. I'd like to make a related claim: We spend little time on deep moral critical thinking. Herd thinking and going with the flow is so much easier and so much sweeter.

The latter is sweeter because of the positive social feedback loop -- you're far more popular. Whereas independent critical thought often goes against the grain and threatens the comfort of your herd.

For example, while I support many of the "cancellations" that are happening, too many of both proponents and opponents don't dare say anything not in line with their chosen herd. There is no possibility of nuanced thought, or that it's not black and white.

Too many of us forget that the mainstream morality of every era is the moral backward of the next. We wrote "All men are created equal" 245 years ago, and we're 155 years post Civil War, yet race, gender and birth class still dominate an individuals place and outcome. Going with the flow (and knee-jerk attack any counter flows) is nothing less than contributing to this societal inertia.

Yet no mention of car center console UI.

I'd imagine those are designed with keeping your focus on the road in mind, by doing things like limiting notifications to only incoming phone calls while you're driving

Having to navigate menu systems to change basic climate controls would say otherwise

Then the problem is the car, not the console UI.

Unfortunately your imagination doesn't correspond well with reality.

They also display texts, have tons of different entertainment integrations, display maps etc. All with crazy high input latency, zero tactile feedback, and a completely homegrown UI to leave you constantly guessing and reading whenever you do simple things like change the radio station.

I find them particularly strange from a design perspective. If anyone here does design on car interfaces, please let me know why this is the direction you're taking, because I'm stumped.

Car interfaces seem like something you would want to optimize for being able to be easily controlled without taking neither eyes nor focus off the road. This, to me, means physical interface elements with good built-in feedback (clicky buttons, notched knobs etc.). Instead, we appear to be going down a dangerous path of having everything be in a screen.

How come?

Sidenote: I'm generally not a big fan of voice-interfaces due to their general inferiority to 'hand-interfaces' (no muscle memory, large latency, high rate of error etc.), but as an interface in a car I think they do make some sense, given the obvious design constraint that you want the driver to focus on the road. They can't replace all functions though due to the aforementioned constraints, but other than that, this is a very fitting niche for the technology.

Touchscreens in cars were seen as luxury so once they became super cheap they threw them in every car with few no-screen options whatsoever. This was cemented in 2018 with a mandate for backup cameras[0] and, when you already have a screen, it makes little sense to only put a screen for the camera unless that's the market segment you're targeting (which, in itself, is small since most people are fine with touchscreens). Unless mandated, profit and sales will trump safety systems every day.

Tesla-esque huge touchscreens are taking off because other infotainment systems have been the absolute worst UX of all mass-market software since forever. Tesla fixed this and is gaining market-share fast, so traditional automakers are trying to prevent more people from switching to Tesla by emulating these selling points (and some recent Mach-E footage shows that the infotainment isn't on the same level, although it is faster than SYNC 3[1]).

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_camera#Mandates

1: https://youtu.be/kqHmbrE11eg?t=40

Interesting - that backup camera mandate does explain it a bit. I wonder if the EU has something similar.

It still doesn't excuse the lack of care with regards to design, but I now have a bit more understanding on the matter. Thanks!

Have to say the pixel flip-to-shhh feature is just brilliant for me

General question: I have survived this by working solo for most of my career. Recently though, I'm faced with a barrage of emails and the expectation that they are read or answered within 20 min (!) of receipt. I much prefer answering emails within a few time slots each day.

How do others manage these expectations?

I've never faced that expectation, but I would most likely not fulfill it. If every mail is important, none is...

Speak with management and adapt (to the requirements), get others to adapt (different expectations), or move on (to another job).

Edit: added clarity

I could say the same for internet connection. Whenever my ISP fails, and I'm not being hyperbolic here, my brain screams thanks. Time then slows down and I feel free to create, wander or think. I really wonder, life critical needs aside, what would happen if people had no internet for a week.

For two years now I have kept very strict rules keeping my phone away from my person. They’re not overly imposing and I probably spend more time on my phone than a lot of people here. But the strictness is really helpful for me:

1. I don’t even look at my phone or anything it would present to me until my puppy is fed and walked and I have coffee in me.

2. I don’t look at it while I’m in motion unless there’s no other option (ie calling a ride or clarifying meatspace meeting arrangements).

3. I don’t look at my phone indoors unless there’s a physical need (ie it needs to be plugged into something else). Phone time is porch time.

I also try not to look at it from dinner time til bedtime but that’s less strict. It’s limited mostly by spending most of that time engaged with said puppy.

I have a strategy of layered speedbumps to screwing around on my digital devices. Next DNS to block some time wasting sites wholesale, Leechblock to limit time use on certain websites or during certain time frames, and Digital Wellbeing to time block whole apps and keep track of my usage.

It would take me 1 minute to turn all of that off, but the time to instant gratification on a stock phone is so rapid, all I find I need is a very minor hindrance and it helps a lot.

If every time I unlocked my phone it had a screen that displayed for 30 seconds that just said "what are you doing right now, and how long do you intend to do it?" I think it would probably have a similar positive effect.

> If every time I unlocked my phone it had a screen that displayed for 30 seconds that just said "what are you doing right now, and how long do you intend to do it?" I think it would probably have a similar positive effect.

I created and app for that. Called Actuflow.

> Will is the Cofounder & CEO of Rize, a simple, intelligent time tracker that improves your focus to help you become more productive.

An app to improve focus. Yet another app.

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 at the place), but I'm sometimes worried that I may need it

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.

> 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.

Shockingly SMS works fine, nobody ever had problem with it.

>Messenger

I use FB like once a week on my PC/Laptop because I'm studying and unfortunely it is must have

>I'm a similar age and so much of my socializing takes place on digital platforms like those, especially during COVID.

on my PC/Laptop I use a lot of VoIPs like Ts3/Discord, but in 90% of the cases with people from the Internet, so it's hard to relate.

You're probably right, but I do not use them (insta, snap, ...) so I'm not aware of what I do lose

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.

Researchers also found that a "Do not miss out!" popup distracted people from reading an article about distraction.

I've had this problem for years, outside of the phone factor. For this very reason, as others have said, I keep my phone on so not disturb 24/7 except if my wife calls.

However, open offices drive me nuts because of the mere threat of a potential interrupt, even if in practice it may happen only once or twice a day.

this constant urge to check your phone, I don't think it's much different from an OCD. OCDs constantly interrupt the normal flow of one's thought processes with obsessive, intrusive interjections ("you are dirty", "did I do x/y?", "maybe you are gay", etc).

that's what apps have instilled into our minds: a constant urge that interrupts our thought processes, so that we check fb, WA, gmail, etc.

I switched all notifications off and I still have this, less than previously, but still. I am thinking of going back to a brick phone because of that.

There is somehow related posting from 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906727

marketing article to promote their app, looks like a spam to me

Most links posted to this site are posted for a financial reason one way or another. That doesn't mean they aren't interesting or intellectually stimulating.

That's 90% of the submissions here. Last time I said that I was scolded because "This was precisely the objective of this site"

As the years go on my relationship with my iPhone feels more and more negative.

Actually starting to hate it and the buzz of it gives me anxiety it might be some more problems from work.

Reading this, I realize that I am in the process of second screening myself. Who are you second screening right now?

Not who, but what: work.

Also this just in, you can get wet when there is water near you.

My flip phone isn't a source of distraction.

When I wake up I put my phone on Do Not Disturb.

One of my favorite features of my phone is to turn on silent whenever the phone is placed face down. It's a dead simple physical action you take, and the vision of it face down is a reminder of your intent.

I bought a cheap dumb nokia on Wednesday, and have left the iPhone at home. I still reach for my pocket to browse reddit, but then remember that the site actually fails to load because it uses more memory than the phone has.

Of course, I miss out on group messages, at least they come to me alone, so I have to piece together like a puzzle what people are saying. Ah well.

that's why I just turn it off when I don't need to call someone

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.

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