Ask HN: How do you deal with distraction?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13670772

by aml183 • 9 years ago

7 5 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Anytime I feel like I'm being productive, something comes up whether it's family, friends etc. How do you stay productive and on task?

justsorneguy• 9 years ago

I don't, otherwise I wouldn't be posting comments on random online threads - I think you're asking the wrong people for this advice...

azuajef• 9 years ago

Try to take a break from HN ;-)

jakobegger• 9 years ago

In my opinion family and friends is the good kind of distraction, and I don't try to avoid them.

Browsing HN or Facebook or reading Twitter is the bad kind of distraction. I block news.ycombinator.com and some other websites on my computer (by editing the hosts file) to avoid the "let me just quickly check something" trap.

But I find that I get distracted most easily when doing boring pointless work. So I try my best to avoid that kind of work and make sure most of my work is intersting. When the work is interesting, I tend not to get distracted so easily.

tedmiston• 9 years ago

Headphones (in the office) and having a dedicated office space when working remotely.

kenshi• 9 years ago

I generally use the Pomodoro technique (25 mins of focussed effort, 5 min break, repeat).

One thing I find useful to stay focussed, is when a distracting idea comes to mind is to simply write it down somewhere, so I can look into it later.

If other people are a distraction, you need to make some time where you cant be interrupted. Switch your phone to airplane mode.

Tell people you are working and not to disturb you at certain times, or just let them know you will get back to them later. If you aren't a jerk about communicating this, most people are pretty reasonable.

Ask HN: How do you deal with distraction?

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