20 second rule to reduce distractions
Summary
- Make the temporal cost of getting distracted to be more than 20 seconds away.
Details
- For example, set a really long password for your social media accounts so that you have to spend 20seconds looking it up and typing it in each time.
- Place deserts in the bottom of the freezer
- Hide your email client so you have to go through nested folders to find it
- Move your phone physically to another room while working
References
Related
- Pay attention to what you are doing - Nadia Boulanger
- Indistractable How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life - Nir Eyal
- Distractions increase our cognitive load
- Distraction can come from within our own mind
- Eliminate distractions to learn something new
- Flexible focus better than relentless focus