I just read Ploum’s essay ‘A Society That Lost Focus’ 1 in my lunch break right on the first day when I got back to work from vacation. I was finding that essay on Mastodon while searching for the #tilde tag; and even though I was discovering the toot in a the most non-invasive way possible - by using the command line (TUI) Mastodon client tut 2 - there a way to many other distraction.

There’s MS Teams, my personal nemesis, with two incarnations on two different tenants, begging for attention, but only one may be active; so the loser sends emails about missed notifications. There are emails. And other emails. And push notifications on your desktop, on your phone.

I should be working on that architecture from that long workshop from before my vacation, but I need to catch up with all these backlogs. There’s a call. Coleague asks me about something. No, I did not read that email just yet. An instant message. If that bug is resolved? What bug? The one assigned to you for triage.

Note, these are just examples from an average day at work, where you’re not exposed to regular social networks, websites and whatnot. It’s the corporate treadmill, and as long as we do not change the work culture, there’s not much you can do. Right? RIGHT?

Well. One could work out some passive-aggressive strategies to mitigate all the troubles and claim back your time, so that you finally get work done again. Simply turn of all the applications, right? Ignore incoming emails? Set Teams to do-not-disturb?

But can you even work with all these distractions? In my line of work I write documentation, specifications. I build upon the work of others. It’s absolutely nothing I create from scratch, it’s not even possible. I must be able to look up standard documents on the Internet, check the Intranet and emails what prior work has been done in this field. Research simply is not possible without having access to the all the online repositories and archives. …and while I was writing this I caught myself peeking at an xterm running an IRC client. And looking at that Mastodon client!

OK, I think I got my bearings now. Only got Ploum’s article open - running w3m, in an xterm - some background music, in cmus - and this editor where I’m writing it.

So what is it what I could do to claim my concentration back without falling into the trap of “this magical piece of nu-tec will solve your problems”? I am thinking real hard about this for years now, but now that I am back from vacation and straight back into the meat grinder, the whole question became ever more pressing. So let me see if I can commit myself to some tactics I just pulled out of my butt, without thinking too hard about it.

  • Let’s see if I can make it through one work week with checking emails only twice a day. Keep MUA closed otherwise.
  • Try not to actively engage in any chat conversation unless someone actively pings me, because my support is really needed. I can’t simply close Teams.
  • Keep all applications closed which are not needed to do the task your’re currently working on.
  • Make regular breaks.
  • When working, try not to research ad-hoc. Collect questions and split up working between active writing and research. Imagine the research stage like a walk to the stacks or the library.

Will that work? Beats me. But I will do my very bloody best to keep applications or people stealing my attention. I now have the chance to work on it. I am already working with an stripped down environment, but it turns out that this didn’t help me from falling into the same trap again. Perhaps it’s just about discipline. Let’s see.

Footnotes:

  1. A Society That Lost Focus ↩

  2. TUI for Mastodon with vim inspired keys  ↩