As a developer, I find it hardest to focus when I don't really have anything clear to focus on. On the other hand, if I have clearly specced small tasks that need to be done, it's quite easy to focus on those, even when there are distractions. If I hit a roadblock or realize I have to re-plan something, that's the moment when I usually lose focus.<p>Also, I'm not good at focusing in the design / planning stage, if the new feature is kind of ambiguous, and I'm not exactly sure about the requirements. I think it'd help a lot if I had some clear strategy about the design process. Sometimes, though, not actively thinking about something let's the brain sort everything out, and the right solution kind of emerges on it's own.<p>Currently I'm working on a task 'design and implement the billing system', so here I am on HN.<p>Edit: I also use <a href="https://heyfocus.com/" rel="nofollow">https://heyfocus.com/</a> which bounces me back to work, if I 'accidentally' drift off.
Reading the article suggests another reason why someone might lose focus, what started out as reporting on research that indicated a change in behavior morphed into a shopping experience.<p>The procession:<p>1. Interesting but perhaps uncorroborated research<p>2. Unsubstantiated possible implications of the uncoroborated research.<p>3. A list of consumer goods and their marketing claims.
For me personally it's not so much incoming notifications that distract me, but my colleagues. We're a small team of iOS and Android developers (about seven people total), and there's an almost constant buzz of random activities about various subjects - 90% of which are not directly relevant to me, but sometimes they are.<p>Plus I have a colleague that Demands I Look At His Code Now from time to time. On the one side I want to indulge him, on the other - could you wait until I'm not in the middle of something? Or not show me an update every five minutes? The headphones are there for a reason.
Good way to focus is to pair up.<p>If you sit with someone else you may still chit chat a bit but you are unlikely to check your email, twitter, HN etc as your conscience is likely to make you focus on the task you are both there for.<p>Like pomodoro technique it is important to still take breaks to check HN etc otherwise you go mad.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I use SelfControl [1] when I really need it. That way I literally can't access social media, HN, etc.<p>[1] <a href="https://selfcontrolapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://selfcontrolapp.com/</a>
PG's articles on this topic is very good, IMO.<p>The level of stimulation around us has gone way up. Our ability to deal with it culturally and psychologically has not gone up the same way. Whether the answer is to limit our exposure, envelop discipline or whatever, I think it's up to the individual at present to figure out a way.<p>The scary trap is: It's easy to consider procrastination/distraction a little problem. It is not.<p>Maybe we need to treat "distraction" like dieting or quitting smoking. That's disconcerting because we're horrendously bad at dieting and overcoming addiction.<p><i>People commonly use the word "procrastination" to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working.</i> - pg<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/distraction.html</a>
<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html</a>
My main response to distraction is to remove myself somehow, while still being "available". If I can't leave the office, don't stop typing to talk to someone. They will get the picture quickly generally. It works better than closing the door (people come in anyway, often in the middle of phone calls) and distractions make their way through putting on a headset and a lecture or some music. (on a side note, I have noticed that I spent quite a bit of time listening to lectures about wide ranging subjects, and had significantly reduced my music listening. I have noticed more productivity with music than with lectures recently, and am moving back in that direction.)<p>Honestly though, for me as a sysadmin, I do no better work than in the dead of night with no one else in the office and I just simply don't even have to worry about external distractions. No one is calling and interrupting my flow, or requesting my presence, (the majority of my interruptions), and I can put on whatever entertainment I like and work away.
spend $30 (at best) and avoid all problems for ever. (true story)<p>Nokia 108. It has radio. It also as 1 week of batter life, by buying it, I have more $$ for a new laptop, and the apps I don't have access to have rewarded me by letting me walk places looking for things, sometimes not finding them and finding other better things instead.<p>Also my memory is getting better without my smart phone, but I'm a fairly visual thinker and I think that taking photo's to remember things was training me not to do it for myself.<p>each to their own, I work in finance and attention to detail is paramount, peers are less a distraction that a smart phone (which is becoming more of a toy day by day)
This link might be useful to a few. It's one hour of audio (and video) of birdsong. If you need some calming background audio to block out external noise, this might help:<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ttkx2" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ttkx2</a><p>If you're not in the UK, someone has also uploaded it to YouTube<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNDtIwNLbao" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNDtIwNLbao</a><p>It's part of a BBC season of 'go slow' TV programmes inspired by Norway's 'slow TV' concept.
I don't get it. They used a metric of looking at different screens as a lack of focus tool, and yet I've just had a nice 2 hour long session of developing a script, where I kept glancing between the script and the output on 2 monitors to see if I had fixed it. By their metric I was not focused, and yet I was just telling my colleague I had a great 2 hour long focused session
The other option is what I'm running into in my current contract as a developer.<p>Work at a large healthcare company and they have everything locked down. And I mean EVERYTHING. No social media sites, no youtube, even 80% of the articles on HN are filtered out. Embedded videos? No way. Even a lot of images in the articles I read are filtered out as well.<p>On top of that? You have to agree to very strict email guidelines when you sign into your POP3 email accounts and oh yeah, the system automatically signs you out after 15 minutes. Not sure how many emails I've started and then look up and see the connection to my gmail account was terminated and I have to log back in to complete my email.<p>I won't even go into the lengthy process it took just to get Chrome installed on my laptop.<p>In a way, you have no option but to focus on work, they've effectively taken any and all distractions away from you, quite forcefully.
If you enjoy the ADHD Type 1 channel you should checkout DI.fm! Been listening to DI for years, great new content all the time. Plenty of old stuff as well.
How many of you made it through this article without getting interrupted? I only made it about 1/3 the way before I received 3 different text messages.
pkorzeniewski - your post is dead. I work from home 90% of the time and I find it really hard not to be distracted by technology (social media). I think that overcrowded offices and technology are two orthogonal problems here.<p>But the trend still seems to be for technology to add more noise. OS X comes with a super-chatty Notification Center that increasingly brings in noise from your phone, smart watches are distracting by default, and I can't imagine what kind of social notification bullshit the Internet of Things will enable. How can we fight this trend?