3.1. Kill Distractions

You are a knowledge worker, meaning you are paid for the creative and innovative ideas you produce. Dealing with constant distractions, both at your desk and on your desktop, can threaten your best contributions to your projects. Developers crave a state known as flow, discussed in lots of places (it even has an entire book devoted to it, written by Csikszentmihalyi). All developers know this state: it’s when you are so focused that time disappears, you develop an almost symbiotic relationship with the machine and the problem you are attacking. This is the state you’ve been in when you say, “Wow, have four hours passed? I didn’t even notice.” The problem with flow is that it is fragile. One distraction pulls you out, and it takes effort to get back in. It also suffers from inertia. Late in the day, you have to fight harder to get back to that state, and the more times you are abruptly pulled out, the harder it becomes. Distractions kill your focus on the problem at hand, making you less productive. Fortunately, you can effectively block distractions in a few simple ways.

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Note:

The higher the level of concentration, the denser the ideas.

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