I’m feeling it right now. I had to set a timer for 15 minute on my computer and block all distractions to write this. If I didn’t force myself to focus I would easily get distracted by something after few minutes. Even when I’m doing things that I’ve been waiting to do it, I still feel the urge to do something else. I don’t know how and when this happened. During the last few years I was always studying, working, and doing open source. And actually got stuff done. Doing all of those at the same time requires paying attention to what I wanted to do and ignore the noise.
Don't Get Distracted
I’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time.
How to reclaim your attention from the distraction economy | Psyche Videos
Could you watch this video on full screen, 1x speed, with no distractions? Here are five steps to rebuild your attention span
My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file
The biggest transition for me when I started college was learning to get organized. There was a point when I couldn't just remember everything in my head. And having to constantly keep track of things was distracting me from whatever task I was doing at the moment.
Do not give up your brain
It's tempting to just let tools think for you, but you still need to be able to think for yourself and stay sharp.
Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom
When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Opinion | There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate
Just as we changed our thinking around physical fitness, we need to change our attitude toward cognitive fitness.
Harnessing Frustration: Using LLMs to Overcome Activation Energy
One of my biggest weaknesses as a software engineer is procrastination when facing a new project. When the scope is unclear, I have a tendency to wait until I feel I’ve “felt out” the problem to start doing anything. I know I’ll feel better and work much faster when I get “stuck in” but I still struggle with that first step, overcoming the “activation energy” required to engage with the details. LLMs have been a game-changer for me in this respect: I can just throw a couple of sentences at them with the shape of the problem. This leads to one of two outcomes: The LLM comes up with a good solution, usually in a slightly different way than what I was thinking. I realize “oh wow the solution is much simpler than I thought”. Straight away I start thinking about the consequences of implementing and improving what the LLM suggested. The LLM comes up with a solution that I intuitively recognize as “wrong”. My immediate reaction is frustration (“How could it get it so wrong”) which leads me to go back and forth with the model, explaining to it why its solution could not possibly work. But in the process of arguing with the model, my brain is churning away and generating variations or different approaches that could work. After a while, even if the AI is still on the wrong track, the debate will trigger a moment of inspiration where suddenly the solution will come to me. I’ll excitedly start up a new conversation and start working through it with the model. The key is the emotional reaction I have immediately to the LLM’s response, either excitement or frustration. By harnessing this immediate feedback loop, I get my brain out of its passive, procrastination mode. It’s almost like a jolt: either I’m thrilled because it’s simpler than I thought, or I’m spurred to action by the urge to correct a perceived ‘wrong’ answer. This forces me to engage with the problem in a meaningful way.
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Cognitive Offloading
If you have ever tilted your head to perceive a rotated image, or programmed a smartphone to remind you of an upcoming appointment, you have engaged in cognitive offloading: the use of physical action to alter the information processing requirements of a task so as to reduce cognitive demand. Despite the ubiquity of this type of behavior, it has only recently become the target of systematic investigation in and of itself. We review research from several domains that focuses on two main questions: (i) what mechanisms trigger cognitive offloading, and (ii) what are the cognitive consequences of this behavior? We offer a novel metacognitive framework that integrates results from diverse domains and suggests avenues for future research.
The Right to Concentrate
In this paper, we clarify the nature and the scope of the right to concentrate. We argue that a right to concentrate constitutes a right against significant, non-consensual interference with a person’s concentration-requiring task. An agent has a right to concentrate when others have a duty not to intentionally or negligently distract her from her performance of a task that requires concentration when concentrating on the task is in the fundamental interests of the agent in question. We analyse the protection of the right to concentrate through different roles in concentration spaces, environments in which concentration-requiring tasks are protected through the governance of impermissible distractions and through norms regulating the access to and the use of such environments. This analysis helps us understand the relevant rights and duties in situations where an agent’s concentration on a task is in her fundamental interests.
Managing intrusive thoughts | Lifeline
Dealing with overwhelming and distressing thoughts can be difficult, but knowing how to handle them can make a big difference to how you feel. Learn why you might be experiencing intrusive thoughts and strategies that can help you manage them.
Please stop multitasking. I’m begging you. Please.
The greatest trick we ever pulled on ourselves as knowledge workers was convincing ourselves we could juggle multiple projects with no consequences.
It’s the Effort That Counts: The Effect of Self-Control on Goal Progress Perceptions
Does the amount of self-control consumers must exert to choose a goal-consistent action influence their perceptions of goal progress? For example, if you choose to go to the gym when one of your favorite TV shows is on (vs. when nothing interesting is on TV), do you perceive that you have made a differential amount of progress toward your goal, despite completing the exact same workout? In eight studies (N = 7,515), the authors demonstrate that consumers perceive that they have made more progress on their goals when more (vs. less) self-control is required to choose to complete an identical goal-consistent task. This is because when consumers exert more (vs. less) self-control to choose a goal-consistent task over the goal-inconsistent alternatives, they infer higher commitment to the goal. The higher inferred commitment, in turn, leads consumers to perceive that future goal pursuit will be easier. The authors demonstrate this effect across a variety of tasks and means of exerting self-control, as well as with both hypothetical scenarios and real-behavior studies.
Satisficing and the Use of Keyboard Shortcuts: Being Good Enough Is Enough?
Keyboard shortcuts are generally accepted as the most efficient method for issuing commands, but previous research has suggested that many people do not use them. In this study we investigate the use of keyboard shortcuts further and explore reasons why they are underutilized by users. In Experiment 1, we establish two baseline findings: (1) people infrequently use keyboard shortcuts and (2) lack of knowledge of keyboard shortcuts cannot fully account for the low frequency of use. In Experiments 2 and 3, we furthermore establish that (3) even when put under time pressure users often fail to select those methods they themselves believe to be fastest and (4) the frequency of use of keyboard shortcuts can be increased by a tool that assists users learning keyboard shortcuts. We discuss how the theoretical notion of ‘satisficing’, adopted from economic and cognitive theory, can explain our results.
Doing nothing at work
Many engineers should be doing less work. I don’t necessarily mean producing less code or fewer changes, but literally working fewer hours in the day. When they do work, they should be working at a slower pace. I like to aim to be running at 80% utilization by default: unless I have a high-pressure project going on, I spend 20% of my workday away from the computer.
