Professional Documents
Culture Documents
To Finding Focus
and Overcoming
Distractions
By Belle B. Cooper
Whether you work from home and have to contend with
family members, pets, and roommates encroaching on
your peace and quiet, or you fight the bustle of busy
streets to get to a noisy, crowded office everyday, chances
are you’re battling against distraction as much as
anyone.
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This is known as the Zeigarnik effect, and it makes our internal
distractions the hardest to overcome, according to Goleman:
“
... there’s no way not to be distracted by
distractions, it’s built into the brain in the way we
pay attention to novelty.
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It’s the unpredictability that makes the party noise so hard to ignore.
And this is why we find unpredictable noises in the office so distracting,
as well. For instance, overhearing just one side of a conversation (a
colleague on a phone call, for example) is especially hard to tune out,
because it’s a human distraction that’s also unpredictable.
Studies have explored what the brain does when we’re paying attention
to something particular amidst unrelated information. One study
showed participants a very quick series of images of faces and houses.
Participants were asked to focus on either the houses or the faces, and
ignore the other type of image.
The researchers found that when seeing an image in the group they
were paying attention to, the synapses in the participant’s brain would
fire in synchronicity, something like a choir all singing in unison. But
when seeing an image the participant was trying to ignore, the brain
would fire synapses out of sync.
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out-of-sync noise of other synapses firing at the same time. So paying
attention to something makes our brain work to fire our synapses in
unison, making the signals about what we’re paying attention to easier
to pick up.
But what was really interesting about this study is that when the
researchers re-did the experiment with the same participants, they
found those who’d been interrupted in the first phase performed better
in the second phase, even if they were again primed to be interrupted.
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It seems going through the experience of trying to focus despite being
distracted is enough to help us develop strategies to focus better the
next time we’re in that situation.
But we also know our brains work with us to focus when necessary.
If we consciously pay attention to something in particular, our brains
fire related synapses in unison, making them easier to pick up on, and
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drowning out the chaotic noise of synapses related to other things in
our surroundings.
And finally, perhaps the best news of all: for those of us who have to
face distraction every day and find a way to concentrate despite it, this
may be exactly how we get better at doing so. We seem to be better at
concentrating despite distractions once we’ve done it before. So every
frustrating workday full of distractions is training you to tune them out
better next time.
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Why We’re Addicted To
Notifications
How many times have you read about people turning all the notifications
off on their phone, or tried yourself, only to find that it never seems to
stick long-term? While we try this with good intentions, most of us end
up right back on the notification train again at some point.
Just to prove how little we know about what’s good for us, research
shows that people who rely on their phones most, and feel anxious
without them, don’t actually feel better when they do have their
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phones nearby. Those who rely most on their phones and/or social
media tend to have higher levels of stress, aggression, distraction, and
depression, have lower self-esteem, and get less sleep on average.
Further research has shown that push notifications from email are a
“toxic source of stress” for many UK workers. This study also found a
strong connection between the use of push notifications and perceived
email stress, according to lead author Dr. Richard MacKinnon:
Another study also explored how connecting with people online affects
our emotional state. The researchers found connecting with others via
Facebook left people feeling sad and dissatisfied, but following up with
a phone call or a face-to-face exchange left people feeling uplifted.
So if email, social media, and mobile notifications are so bad for us,
why can’t we give them up?
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Harris’s goal is to have product designers sign a kind of hippocratic
oath, swearing to design products that don’t take advantage of users.
“There is a way to design based not on addiction,” he says.
Joe Edelman, who helped Harris with the research for Time Well Spent,
compares the tech industry to Big Tobacco before the link between
cigarettes and cancer was proven: giving customers more of what they
want, even if it’s harmful.
Though using this research in software design might seem sinister, Eyal
says it can be beneficial when used in the right way:
“
If used for good, habits can enhance people’s lives
with entertaining and even healthful routines.
If used to exploit, habits can turn into wasteful
addictions.
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“
Saying ‘Don’t use these techniques’ is essentially
saying ‘Don’t make your products fun to use.’
That’s silly. With every new technology, the older
generation says ‘Kids these days are using too
much of this and too much of that and it’s melting
their brains.’ And it turns out that what we’ve
always done is to adapt.
But Harris doesn’t buy it. The onus is on software designers, he says, to
avoid making us all addicted to their products:
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Making notifications and social media manageable
While Harris is making some progress in getting software designers
on board with the idea of designing products that don’t rely on user
addiction to succeed, there are plenty of products we use every day
that are already built around addictive behaviors.
Eyal’s model also includes investment: a step where the user, having
already interacted with the product, is asked to invest time, money,
data, or effort to make the product more useful to them and make it
more likely they’ll come back in the future. Inviting friends to a social
network or learning to use new features of an app are examples of the
investment stage, that only increase our reliance on these products
and make us more likely to keep using them.
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Casali split his own app usage into three groups:
1. Instant: Anything he wants to know about as soon as it happens
2. Relevant: Anything he wants to know about when he’s open to new
updates, but not immediately
3. Kill: Anything he really doesn’t need to know about
For the first group, Casali left notifications on as usual. For the
“Relevant” group, he turned off all notification and alert options except
for app icon badges. This made it obvious which apps had new updates
when Casali took the time to check their icons, but didn’t interrupt his
day with updates whenever they were available.
For the final group, Casali turned off all notification and alert options
completely.
While checking less often was tough on workers, keeping their email
use restricted reduced stress:
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So while it might be difficult to adjust to, try turning off email
notifications and setting just a few specific times aside for checking
your inbox. Put your entire inbox on pause, if you need to. You might
find you feel better overall, even if the immediate change is tough.
For any service that offers a daily digest of updates rather than
immediate notifications, try turning that on. You’ll get a predictable
daily roundup of everything that’s new, so you’ll stay in the loop
without checking several times a day for a new reward.
For services that don’t offer this feature built-in, you can use Zapier’s
Digest feature to create your own. For any of Zapier’s 750+ connected
apps, you can use Digest to create a daily roundup of updates you care
about. You can even decide where to have your digest sent, so if email
isn’t your thing you could use a Slack channel instead, for instance.
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Being aware of the behavioral research used by product designers can
help us understand why we’re so addicted to notifications and checking
for updates online, but we need to take further steps to overcome
those behaviors.
And for those of us who spend many hours every day with technology,
it’s especially important to find ways to balance our need for
technology without letting it take over our lives.
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How To Clear Your
Digital Clutter And Get
More Done
I spend most of my day on a computer. When I’m not working I spend
my spare time programming or blogging. When I take a break I spend it
looking at my phone.
One of the problems with all this time spent looking at screens is the
amount of digital clutter these habits have created in my life.
Spending so much time online every day leads to a cluttered life. One
where you don’t stop and think before grabbing your phone during any
moment of downtime. One where you start feeling obliged to post on
social networks twice a day because your followers expect you to and
you forgot to ask yourself if it even matters what people expect.
But once we realize how cluttered our lives have become with screens,
social media, and expectations, we can look for ways to simplify that mess.
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Transition to digital minimalism
Professor and author Cal Newport is well-known for his ideas about
productivity—in particular, finding the time and space to do real,
important work. So when Newport suggested quitting social media,
people took notice.
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minimalism. The first is a subtractive approach. This involves removing
each digital tool, service, or associated behavior that you find doesn’t
add value to your life. One by one, survey each element of digital
clutter you’ve accumulated and ask yourself if it deserves to stay. If not,
remove it.
Either way, the most important thing, says Newport, is to make sure
you’re choosing the best tool or service in each case, not just whatever
will do the job.
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of Snapchat—no one would begrudge you having fun with friends.
But Newport points out that we rarely take the time to find the best
way to get the value we’re looking for. Instead, we try a new tool, find
some value in it, and decide that’s a good reason to keep giving it our
attention.
When you know what your values are, Newport says, you can focus on
finding the best tools to help you live out those values.
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Although it can be difficult to escape from the cycle of busyness, doing
so opens up time for hard, important work.
It’s never easy to go against the grain, but in doing what seems
normal we’re doing ourselves a disservice. Our “normal” has become a
harmful habit of accepting all new, available technology into our lives,
regardless of how much value it really brings us.
Taking the time to re-evaluate the tools we use and how we spend our
time can be an eye-opening experience. And if we regularly evaluate
our choices and protect our time and attention, we may just be able to
avoid falling into that trap again.
But then, one of the tools we use is more of a problem than others: the
ubiquitous phone that most of us carry on us 24/7. This amazing piece
of technology has the power to steal our attention perhaps more than
any other tool around us. So how can we take control of how we use
our phones, rather than letting them control us?
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How To Stop Checking
Your Phone So Often
It’s a modern-day problem, but many of us can’t leave the room—let
alone the house—without our phones in our pockets. We even have
new gadgets to wear on our wrists to help us keep our phones in our
pockets more—but without missing out on anything.
But I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to spend a little less time
with my phone and a little more time with people, nature, food, and
anything else not involving screens.
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So if there’s something that you keep doing
obsessively, make sure that it’s not in your
environment and you’re less likely to do it. That’s
a much more effective way of preventing yourself
from using it than say keeping it nearby but trying
to just suppress the desire to use it.
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Turn off notifications
We covered this approach in the last chapter, so I won’t go into detail
again here, but turning off your notifications is a classic way to ease
your reliance on that little box in your pocket that’s always vying for
your attention.
So you start leaving your phone in your home office or in your entrance
hall. When you’re in bed or chilling on the couch, what do you do? Here
are some ideas to get you thinking:
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• Get out that musical instrument you keep meaning to play and
store it next to your couch
• Keep a journal and pen by your bed
• Keep a set of small weights by the couch
• Keep a yo-yo or a set of juggling balls by the couch and learn a few
party tricks
• Put reading apps on the main screen of your phone or tablet and
move all other apps into hard-to-reach places
• Keep a letter-writing pad and a pen by your bed and catch up on
some old-fashioned correspondence
But there’s another part of daily life that can be overwhelming and
difficult to manage: your calendar.
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How To Protect Your
Time And Organize
Your Calendar
Being productive, working on the right things, and not letting busywork
take over your day often comes down to how you schedule your work.
As productivity expert Cal Newport says, scheduling your week in
advance “allows you to spread out, batch, and prioritize work in a
manner that significantly increases what you accomplish and goes a
long way toward eliminating work pile-ups and late nights.”
Try out these tips for improving the way you schedule your work to
make sure you’re spending your time on what’s most important.
Categorize events
Even if you have a separate calendar for work events, you might have
various types of events on that one calendar. Etsy engineering director
Lara Hogan suggests creating separate event categories and using a
color code to distinguish them on your calendar.
By color-coding your events, you can easily glance at your calendar and
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get an idea of what’s coming up for the rest of the day or week.
Here’s what your calendar might look like with this color-coding system
in place:
Gym Gym
Travel Travel
Travel
Meeting with coworker
Training
Lunch with friend
Meeting with coworker
Lunch Company meeting
Lunch
Client meeting
Travel Travel
Travel
Hogan also suggests grouping events from the same category whenever
possible. If you have a full day of one-on-one meetings, for instance,
you can stay in the same mindset all day. But a jumbled schedule
with one-on-ones, office hours, and client meetings will require more
context switching throughout the day.
“ I love the idea that she starts every week with a full
calendar, as opposed to an empty calendar that
needs filling. I’ve always defaulted to the idea that
my main work would fit in the empty slots, after
everything else has been scheduled.
As Mall says, writing down this way of thinking about your work
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schedule makes it obvious how silly it is. Though most of us do
approach our calendars this way: we start with a blank slate, and make
our most important work fit in around any appointments and events
that pop up throughout the workweek.
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Let others do the work
Although using a calendar to schedule your work can help make sure
everything important gets done, it can also create even more overhead
as you end up with longer email chains to create and reschedule
meetings throughout the workweek.
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for doing admin work and keeping her business running. This way, she’s
confident that she’ll get her admin work done every week, and she can
ignore those tasks on other days when she’s doing more focused client
work:
“
If I give myself one day to do the bulk of my
emailing/interview answering/file organizing/
scheduling etc, I feel WAY less guilty about ignoring
all of that stuff for large periods of time during the
rest of the work week.
Using your calendar to protect your time can help you prioritize work
that’s meaningful to you. But having an environment that’s conducive
to doing that meaningful work is just as important.
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How To Improve Your
Work Environment
From the lighting in your office to the style of desk you work at, your
environment can help or hinder your productivity. Let’s take a look
at some ways you can adjust your workspace to suit your needs and
improve your efficiency at work.
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If you already work in an office with windows, try rearranging the
furniture so all employees can see out a window from their desks. If
that’s not possible, try spending some part of each day working near a
window, or take a walk at lunchtime to ensure you’re getting as much
natural light as possible throughout the workday.
You don’t need to build entire treehouses for your meeting rooms, but
adding potted plants and photos of nature to your workspace could
boost your happiness and productivity.
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more difficult, resulting in frustration. Some fine motor skill tasks, for
instance, can be more difficult to complete while standing.
For instance, keeping your screen clean and free of glare can make it
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easier to read so your eyes don’t have to work too hard. Your computer
screen should be about an arm’s length away from you when working,
and the center of your screen should be a few inches below your eye
level so you’re looking down slightly.
Don’t let others decide where and how you spend your time and
attention, or they will, and you’ll be left with only what’s left over when
everyone else has taken what they want.
Your time and attention are two of your most precious resources, and
you need to treat them that way if you want to do more meaningful
work.
There’s a lot to untangle when it comes to finding time and focus for
meaningful work, and overcoming the pull of distractions. Take it one
step at a time, and rest assured those small changes will eventually
add up to a more calm, focused workday.
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Further Reading
• Multitasking is a myth
• How to do your best work (and figure out what that is)
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Checklist
To help you take action on what we’ve covered in this guide, here’s
a checklist of ways to get started on cutting down distractions and
finding focus.
• Find a new home for your phone that’s not in your hand, in your
pocket, or by your bed
• Choose a new activity or hobby to replace phone time and keep it
by your couch, bed, desk, or wherever you usually use your phone
• Replace social networks, work tools, and news sites that aren’t
adding value with better options
• Turn off as many notifications as possible
• Set up daily digests for any services you don’t need immediate
notifications from
• Plan regular periods to check email and keep your inbox closed
otherwise
• Make a boilerplate schedule for your calendar and block out regular
periods of focus time
• Set up a public calendar where others can book appointments
with you
• Move any recurring events from Mondays to other weekdays to
avoid the hassle of rescheduling during long weekends
• Improve the lighting in your workspace by moving your desk,
opening the blinds, or leaving doors open to let natural light filter
through from other rooms
• Add plants—or pictures of plants—to your office
• Schedule regular walks in nature-filled areas
• Check the height of your screen, desk, and chair
• Set a regular reminder to look up from your screen and give your
eyes a break
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Do More Work That Matters
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