## Distractions
-Life is full of distractions. So many things want our attention, and many of these distractions are outside of our control. Someone enters our work-space and needs our attention at that moment. An email thread that we thought was settled becomes a heated discussion and our attention is drawn to it. Something happens at home and now our mind is split between worrying about our work tasks and worrying about what's happening at home. Whatever the cause may be there are times when our attention isn't where we want it to be and we feel pulled in every direction at once.
+Life is full of distractions. So many things want our attention, and many of these distractions are outside of our control. Someone enters our work-space and needs our attention at that moment. An email thread that we thought was settled becomes a heated discussion and our attention is drawn to it. Something happens at home and now our minds are split between worrying about our work tasks and worrying about what's happening at home. Whatever the cause may be, there are times when our attention isn't where we want it to be and we feel pulled in every direction at once.
-This is when the containers are most helpful. If something interrupts the container we can determine if it's more important than the work we're doing. If we determine that it is more important than what we're currently doing we can stop the container with the understanding that we'll return to the work once we've handled the interruption. If the interruption is not more important then we can agree (both with whomever is interrupting us, or with ourselves) that our focus needs to be here with the work until the container ends. We'll be able to give that disruption our full attention once the container ends. We'll won't try to split our attention between the work and the interruption, rather we'll give each of them our full attention at the appropriate time.
+This is when the containers are most helpful. If something interrupts the container we can determine if it's more important than the work we're doing. If we determine that it is more important than what we're currently doing we can stop the container with the understanding that we'll return to the work once we've handled the interruption. If the interruption is not more important then we can agree (both with whomever is interrupting us, or with ourselves) that our focus needs to be here with the work until the container ends. We'll be able to give that disruption our full attention once the container ends. We won't try to split our attention between the work and the interruption, rather we'll give each of them our full attention at the appropriate time.
-This method creates a simple delineation between our work and the rest of the world. But just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Keeping the delineation between our work and the outside world can be challenging, especially if the culture you're in is about immediate results.
+This method creates a simple delineation between our work and the rest of the world, but just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. Keeping the delineation between our work and the outside world can be challenging, especially if the culture you're in is about immediate results.
-I don't have good answers if the culture you're in demands your attention at all times. The best I can offer is a containerized approach that gives you at least some periods of undisturbed concentration. But if you feel on-guard all the time because something might happen at any moment then you're going to remain less effective than if you can shut the world off for a bit. I'd also challenge you to examine if that perception is really true; are you constantly being ambushed by interruptions? Testing that theory may be in order. Keep a log (whether it's a sheet of paper, text file, spreadsheet, or database is up to you) of when you did a focus container and if that container was interrupted or not. If you find that you are getting interrupted more often than not then you need to determine what is causing the interruption and assess if it's something that you can control. There are many ways to handle and minimize workplace distractions that I won't go into here but being aware of the distractions and determining where they are coming from will be key to figuring out how to mitigate them in the future.
+I don't have good answers if the culture you're in demands your attention at all times. The best I can offer is a containerized approach that gives you at least some periods of undisturbed concentration. If you feel on-guard all the time because something might happen at any moment then you're going to remain less effective than if you can shut the world off for a bit. I'd also challenge you to examine whether that perception is really true; are you constantly being ambushed by interruptions? Testing that theory may be in order. Keep a log (whether it's a sheet of paper, text file, spreadsheet, or database is up to you) of when you did a focus container and if that container was interrupted or not. If you find that you are getting interrupted more often than not then you need to determine what is causing the interruption and assess if it's something that you can control. There are many ways to handle and minimize workplace distractions that I won't go into here, but being aware of the distractions and determining where they are coming from will be key to figuring out how to mitigate them in the future.
Also be aware of the self-imposed distractions you've added to your life. Do you need immediate notification that someone liked something you shared? Is the funny anecdote you just remembered important enough to warrant switching out of your current context so you can post it to your friends and colleagues? Do you really need something to pop up in your field of view to let you know that your music player changed a track? Are you willing to sacrifice your attention and flow throughout the day because a program detected a change in your environment, regardless of the importance of that change?
-We add these distractions into our lives because we worry that we might miss something important. Programs also come configured with most of their notifications turned on so a user can be reminded of the status of the program at all times. Perhaps it's useful but for me they are very distracting. In my career I've sat at the desks of many other folks and have cringed at the number of notifications they receive in the short period was there (usually the span of ten minutes or less). And I've seen folks interrupt their current line of thinking because a notification for a message unrelated to the current task distracted them. What happened to the original thought? They had to mentally switch back to it and remember where they left off (usually at great mental effort).
+We add these distractions into our lives because we worry that we might miss something important. Programs also come configured with most of their notifications turned on so a user can be reminded of the status of the program at all times. Perhaps it's useful, but for me they are very distracting. In my career I've sat at the desks of many other folks and have cringed at the number of notifications they receive in the short I period was there (a span of ten minutes or less). I've seen folks interrupt their current line of thinking because a notification for a message unrelated to the current task distracted them. What happened to the original thought? They had to mentally switch back to it and remember where they left off, usually at great mental effort.
-I challenge you to turn off as many notifications as you can and get a taste of what your experience is like without them. That may be as simple as closing out an application when you're done with it, or may be as complex as changing the settings so an application doesn't notify you when new messages arrive. You'll need to play with this and see what works best for your needs and concentration. A good rule of thumb is "what is important enough to warrant me dropping my important work and focusing on this thing?". If you can scale your notifications so that only the most time-critical notifications reach you at the appropriate time then you'll be better able to relax and focus into your work. You won't have to parse the notifications to determine if what you're seeing is important or not.
+I challenge you to turn off as many notifications as you can and get a taste of what your experience is like without them. That may be as simple as closing out an application when you're done with it, or may be as complex as changing the settings so an application doesn't notify you when new messages arrive. You'll need to play with this and see what works best for your needs and concentration. A good rule of thumb is "what does this thing track that is important enough for me to drop my important work and focus on this thing?." If you can scale your notifications so that only the most time-critical notifications reach you at the appropriate time then you'll be better able to relax and focus into your work. You won't have to parse the notifications to determine if what you're seeing is important or not.
-One of the reasons I've heard for folks keeping their notifications on is that they might receive something that requires an immediate response. We've created cultures where we feel a need to respond to messages the moment we receive them. I'd argue that most of the messages you receive during the day don't require the attention you're giving them, and certainly not the level of attention that warrants interrupting what you're doing to view and respond to them. You may be better served by scheduling several periods of the day where you do nothing but check and respond to your messages. Schedule these as infrequently as you can. Some folks recommend two or three times a day, but even setting a limit where you check your messages once an hour can make a vast improvement compared with how many times you're already checking your messages. You'll need to judge how often you check your messages based on your needs and your work culture. Also consider the person to whom you're responding. Does it make sense to give this person a quick, semi-thought-out response or does this message require more time to simmer in your mind before you respond? Giving yourself time to think about a your response may give you additional insights into a problem that might not be readily apparent in the moment. This could mean the difference between one well thought out response versus a deluge of half-thought-out back-and-forth brainstorming via your messaging application. Responding to everything as it's received is very stressful and requires huge amounts of attention that could be better used in your programming work.
+One of the reasons I've heard for folks keeping their notifications on is that they feel they might receive something that requires an immediate response. We've created cultures where we feel a need to respond to messages the moment we receive them. I'd argue that most of the messages you receive during the day don't require the attention you're giving them, and certainly not the level of attention that warrants interrupting what you're doing to view and respond to them. You may be better served by scheduling several periods of the day where you do nothing but check and respond to your messages. Schedule these as infrequently as you can. Some folks recommend two or three times a day, but even setting a limit where you check your messages once an hour can make a vast improvement over how many times you're already checking your messages. You'll need to judge how often you check your messages based on your needs and your work culture. Also consider the person to whom you're responding. Does it make sense to give this person a quick, semi-thought-out response, or does this message require more time to simmer in your mind before you respond? Giving yourself time to think about a your response may give you additional insights into a problem that might not be readily apparent in the moment. This could mean the difference between one well thought out response versus a deluge of half-thought-out back-and-forth brainstorming via your messaging application. Responding to everything as it's received is very stressful and requires huge amounts of attention that could be better used in your programming work.
It may seem challenging and foreign to live without notifications and without the need to respond to every message and notification, but our attention is finite and limited. Maintaining focus throughout the day is challenging and stressful. If we can limit the number of distractions we receive throughout the day we then give ourselves the freedom to not have to work as hard to keep our attention attuned to our programming tasks. We get to say "not right now" to our distractions and handle them at a more appropriate time.
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / blobdiff