For my habit, I decided to monitor the amount of times I check my messages and my phone while I do my work. It’s been a problem for me for as long as I can remember, especially during days where I get lots of notifications, so I figured this could be a good habit to look at. To measure this, I sat down for 2.5 hours to do my work on Saturday and Sunday in my normal work environment (at my desk with my phone across the room with my computer on Do Not Disturb), and recorded the number of times I checked my phone, got distracted by any notifications on my phone or computer, or checked the iMessage app on my computer. I did this because even when I put my phone across the room and set my computer to DND, I still see the notifications from my text messages on the iMessage app on the dock of my computer. What I found was that I checked my phone twice the first day, and once the second. One time was because I got a call, and the other two were just because I wanted to take a short break after working relatively efficiently for a bit. I didn’t have the urge to check my phone because it was across the room. I tried to make sure that I was following my routine as much as possible, but usually getting up to check my phone isn’t my issue. The most compelling thing I found from measuring this was that I get extremely distracted from the iMessage app on the dock of my computer. On Sunday, some of my friends kept texting in a group chat, so I would constantly see a number come up next to the app, indicating that I received a new message. I checked my iMessage app or got distracted from looking at the notifications over 10 times on Saturday, and over 30 on Sunday.
Reflecting on what I measured, I learned that I certainly need to remove the iMessage app from my dock when I work. My phone itself isn’t really my issue, especially when it is across the room. I realized that I have great discipline when I work as long as I don’t see or hear any sort of notification. I didn’t have the urge to check my phone, but even just seeing the numbers pop up on the app in dock of my computer made me immediately want to click it to view the messages. What’s worse is after I would send a message, I would then periodically look back at the iMessage app to see if there was a new notification, leading to less focus. I think that removing the app from the dock will lead to great results for me, and I may also start putting my phone on DND so that I don’t hear my ringtone unless someone calls me twice in a row (in which case it’s probably important).
Additionally, I learned that when I focused for about 20-30 minutes at a time, I started to become much more interested in the work I was doing and put more effort into it. Then, as soon as I would get distracted, it took at least a couple of minutes to refocus into that “zone”. If I can remove those distractions, I think I can be much more efficient with my work and produce better work as a result. Next time, I would want to again measure the same things, but this time record for 4 or 5 days to get more data. I would also like to do another 1 or 2 days of working while removing the iMessage app from the dock and putting my phone on DND to compare it to the days with those distractions. I’m sure I’d find good results!
