Unplugging from distractions
Article by Paul Graham (Paul Graham), in which he tells how to deal with factors that distract from work.
Reader training level: medium .
May 2008
The factor that distracts you from work is rooted in all sorts of entertainments that prevent you from concentrating. Most people experience discomfort if they are idle; you shy away from work by doing something else.
')
So, in order to stop evading work, you need to eliminate what prevents you from concentrating. But it's not as easy as it sounds, because there are people who work hard to distract you from work, entertaining. Entertainment is not some kind of static obstacle that you can bypass, like, for example, a stone lying on the road. Entertainment is looking for you.
Chesterfield (Chesterfield) describes the dirt as a substance that was in the wrong place. In the same way, we want entertainment at the wrong time. And technologies to create more and more desirable things are constantly being improved. This means that as soon as we learn to ignore one type of entertainment, they are constantly being replaced by new ones, like drug-resistant bacteria.
For example, television after 50 years of cultivation has reached the point at which it became a drug for the eyes. When I was 13 years old, I realized that television causes addiction, and I stopped watching TV. And recently I read that the average American is watching TV 4 hours a day. A quarter of your life.
Now television is in decline, but only because people have found new ways to waste time, causing even more addiction. And what is especially dangerous, many of these methods are connected to your computer. And this is not by chance. A huge percentage of office workers sit in front of computers connected to the Internet, and their services are a variety of things that distract from work.
I remember there was a time when computers, at least for me, served exclusively for work. I could sometimes connect to the server to receive emails or download files, but most of the time I was disconnected. All I did was write and program it. Now I have the feeling that someone had sneakily put the TV on my desk. Things that are terribly addictive are just a click away from me. Faced with difficulty in what you work? Um, I wonder what's new in online? And if I do not check?
After many years, during which I carefully tried to avoid the classic waste of time, such as television, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall victim to distractions because I did not realize that they were evolving. What used to be safe — using the Internet — was gradually becoming more and more dangerous. On other days, I wake up, drink a cup of tea and check the news, then check the mail, then check the news again, then respond to several messages, and suddenly discover that it is already lunch time, and I have not done anything to work. And it began to happen more and more often.
It took me a surprisingly long time to understand how distracting the Internet became, because the problem only arose from time to time. I ignored her, as we ignored any beetle, which annoys us only from time to time. When I was working on a project, distractions were not a problem, in fact. That's when I finished one project, and wondered what to do next, they curbed me.
Another reason why it was difficult to notice the danger of this new distraction is that it has not yet become one of the habits at the level of society. If I spent the whole morning sitting on the couch and staring at the TV, I would notice it very quickly. This is a well-known sign of danger, like drinking alone. But using the Internet still looks like a job, and gives you the feeling that you're busy with work.
In the end, it still became clear that the Internet was becoming more and more distracting, so I was forced to change my attitude towards it. In fact, I had to add a new application to my list of known time-consuming factors that distract from business: Firefox.
This is one of the most intractable problems, because most people need the Internet anyway. If you drink too much, you can solve this problem by stopping drinking altogether. But you can not solve the problem of overeating, stop eating. I could not completely ignore the Internet, as I did for other empty pastimes. At first I tried to introduce rules. For example, I told myself that I would only surf the Internet twice a day. But I did not adhere to these rules for long. Sometimes all the same, something like this would arise, which made me use the Internet more often than I set for myself. And then I gradually slipped to their previous positions.
Things that cause addiction, must be treated as a smart opponent; like a little man sits in your head, who is constantly on the lookout for very, very convincing arguments for doing what you are trying to stop doing. And if you leave at least a small loophole, he will definitely find it.
The key seems to be accessibility. Reluctance to recognize the obvious prevents us from getting rid of most of the bad habits. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the obvious in order not to do what you are trying to stop doing. It is necessary to turn on the alarm.
Perhaps in the future, the correct answer to the question of how to cope with the time absorbing distractions offered by the Internet will be to create a program that will monitor and control them. Well, in the meantime, I found a more radical solution that definitely works: I installed another computer specifically for using the Internet.
Now on my main computer, wifi is turned on only when I need to send a file or edit a web document; In another corner of my room is another laptop that I use to check messages or to crawl over the Internet. (The paradox is that this is the computer that Steve Huffman wrote to Reddit. When Steve and Alexis sold their laptops at a charity auction, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum).
My rule is this: I can spend as much time online as I want, provided that I do it on this computer. And that was enough. When I have to sit in this corner of the room, checking email or browsing files online, I am clearly aware of this. At least in my case, the realization that it is difficult to spend more than an hour online is really clear.
And my main computer is now free to work. If you try this trick, you will probably be overwhelmed by the completely new feeling that your computer is disconnected from the Internet. This new feeling that gripped me when I sat down at a computer that could only be used for work alarmed me, as I realized how much time I must have wasted.
Cool! All I can do on this computer is to work. Well, in that case, I will probably work. What is the positive effect? Your old habits will now help you work. You used to sit at your computer for hours. But now you can't surf the web or check email. So what are you going to do? You can't just sit. Therefore, you start working.
This translation at Translated.by: http://translated.by/you/disconnecting-distraction
This translation is on the JumpIDEA blog : http://spring.jumpidea.com/2008/08/paul-graham-distraction.html
The translation was made by order of the company JumpIDEA .
Reader training level: medium .
May 2008
The factor that distracts you from work is rooted in all sorts of entertainments that prevent you from concentrating. Most people experience discomfort if they are idle; you shy away from work by doing something else.
')
So, in order to stop evading work, you need to eliminate what prevents you from concentrating. But it's not as easy as it sounds, because there are people who work hard to distract you from work, entertaining. Entertainment is not some kind of static obstacle that you can bypass, like, for example, a stone lying on the road. Entertainment is looking for you.
Chesterfield (Chesterfield) describes the dirt as a substance that was in the wrong place. In the same way, we want entertainment at the wrong time. And technologies to create more and more desirable things are constantly being improved. This means that as soon as we learn to ignore one type of entertainment, they are constantly being replaced by new ones, like drug-resistant bacteria.
For example, television after 50 years of cultivation has reached the point at which it became a drug for the eyes. When I was 13 years old, I realized that television causes addiction, and I stopped watching TV. And recently I read that the average American is watching TV 4 hours a day. A quarter of your life.
Now television is in decline, but only because people have found new ways to waste time, causing even more addiction. And what is especially dangerous, many of these methods are connected to your computer. And this is not by chance. A huge percentage of office workers sit in front of computers connected to the Internet, and their services are a variety of things that distract from work.
I remember there was a time when computers, at least for me, served exclusively for work. I could sometimes connect to the server to receive emails or download files, but most of the time I was disconnected. All I did was write and program it. Now I have the feeling that someone had sneakily put the TV on my desk. Things that are terribly addictive are just a click away from me. Faced with difficulty in what you work? Um, I wonder what's new in online? And if I do not check?
After many years, during which I carefully tried to avoid the classic waste of time, such as television, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall victim to distractions because I did not realize that they were evolving. What used to be safe — using the Internet — was gradually becoming more and more dangerous. On other days, I wake up, drink a cup of tea and check the news, then check the mail, then check the news again, then respond to several messages, and suddenly discover that it is already lunch time, and I have not done anything to work. And it began to happen more and more often.
It took me a surprisingly long time to understand how distracting the Internet became, because the problem only arose from time to time. I ignored her, as we ignored any beetle, which annoys us only from time to time. When I was working on a project, distractions were not a problem, in fact. That's when I finished one project, and wondered what to do next, they curbed me.
Another reason why it was difficult to notice the danger of this new distraction is that it has not yet become one of the habits at the level of society. If I spent the whole morning sitting on the couch and staring at the TV, I would notice it very quickly. This is a well-known sign of danger, like drinking alone. But using the Internet still looks like a job, and gives you the feeling that you're busy with work.
In the end, it still became clear that the Internet was becoming more and more distracting, so I was forced to change my attitude towards it. In fact, I had to add a new application to my list of known time-consuming factors that distract from business: Firefox.
This is one of the most intractable problems, because most people need the Internet anyway. If you drink too much, you can solve this problem by stopping drinking altogether. But you can not solve the problem of overeating, stop eating. I could not completely ignore the Internet, as I did for other empty pastimes. At first I tried to introduce rules. For example, I told myself that I would only surf the Internet twice a day. But I did not adhere to these rules for long. Sometimes all the same, something like this would arise, which made me use the Internet more often than I set for myself. And then I gradually slipped to their previous positions.
Things that cause addiction, must be treated as a smart opponent; like a little man sits in your head, who is constantly on the lookout for very, very convincing arguments for doing what you are trying to stop doing. And if you leave at least a small loophole, he will definitely find it.
The key seems to be accessibility. Reluctance to recognize the obvious prevents us from getting rid of most of the bad habits. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the obvious in order not to do what you are trying to stop doing. It is necessary to turn on the alarm.
Perhaps in the future, the correct answer to the question of how to cope with the time absorbing distractions offered by the Internet will be to create a program that will monitor and control them. Well, in the meantime, I found a more radical solution that definitely works: I installed another computer specifically for using the Internet.
Now on my main computer, wifi is turned on only when I need to send a file or edit a web document; In another corner of my room is another laptop that I use to check messages or to crawl over the Internet. (The paradox is that this is the computer that Steve Huffman wrote to Reddit. When Steve and Alexis sold their laptops at a charity auction, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum).
My rule is this: I can spend as much time online as I want, provided that I do it on this computer. And that was enough. When I have to sit in this corner of the room, checking email or browsing files online, I am clearly aware of this. At least in my case, the realization that it is difficult to spend more than an hour online is really clear.
And my main computer is now free to work. If you try this trick, you will probably be overwhelmed by the completely new feeling that your computer is disconnected from the Internet. This new feeling that gripped me when I sat down at a computer that could only be used for work alarmed me, as I realized how much time I must have wasted.
Cool! All I can do on this computer is to work. Well, in that case, I will probably work. What is the positive effect? Your old habits will now help you work. You used to sit at your computer for hours. But now you can't surf the web or check email. So what are you going to do? You can't just sit. Therefore, you start working.
This translation at Translated.by: http://translated.by/you/disconnecting-distraction
This translation is on the JumpIDEA blog : http://spring.jumpidea.com/2008/08/paul-graham-distraction.html
The translation was made by order of the company JumpIDEA .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/36846/
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