Through algorithms and psychological tricks, they've become dangerously good at their job. Social media and news companies have teams of employees whose sole job is to figure out ways to grab and hold your attention. The digital world needs to be managed with the same effort as the physical world.Ĭell-phones and the internet are one of the biggest distraction creators of all time. Headphones not only remove the surrounding noise but they also signal to the people around you that you’re busy and shouldn’t be bothered.
If you can’t avoid a distracting environment, a pair of headphones can go a long way Ideally, you’ll want a location where nothing unexpected happens.
Selfcontrol mac tv#
The main thing to avoid is TV and other highly stimulating surroundings that might prompt you to change tasks or grab your attention. When it’s not, I post up in the corner of my bedroom. I've had to create a designated workspace at my home that allows for a similar environment. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, I don't have that option. The coffee shop allowed me to get away from the distractions of my home and put some distance between friends and family. In normal times, I'd usually do a lot of my coding in a nearby coffee shop. If you're not around something then it can't prompt you to interact with it.
The best way to avoid getting sucked into one of these distractions is to find a location where they have no influence over us.Īs the saying goes "Out of sight, out of mind."
They all want our attention is some shape or form. Whether it's our gaming systems, friends, family, the dirty dishes. Our day to day life is filled with various people and objects vying for our attention. I've found changing locations or simply coding in a designated workspace is a useful tool when avoiding distractions.
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It will require some forethought and trial and error to get right.īelow are a few techniques you can use when designing your own distraction-free learning environment.įind a location where you can’t be interrupted Each person will have different constraints based on their life circumstances. Make distracting behaviors harder to perform while coding.Īt the end of the day, crafting a learning environment is a design problem. Make your coding habit small and easy to do. Remove Prompts that'll trigger distracting behaviors.Īdd Prompts that will help you stay focused on coding. Instead, focus on adjusting the other two variables of the Fogg Behavior Model: Prompt and Ability. Since motivation is unreliable, you should avoid learning in an environment that requires a high level of motivation to be productive. Prompt - An internal or external trigger that reminds you to do the behavior. Motivation - Hopes, fears, pleasure-seeking, pain avoidance, social acceptance, and social rejection.Ībility - Your ability to perform a task, which includes: time, money, physical effort, mental effort, social deviance, and routine. To recap, the Fogg Behavior Model points out that a behavior occurs when three things are present at the same time: Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt. It relies on the Fogg Behavior Model that I talked about in a previous post. There's a pretty simple framework to follow when crafting a distraction-free learning environment. Ultimately, having a distraction-free environment will accelerate your learning and help you achieve your goal in less time. When your focus is weak, new information will be less sticky which will result in slower learning and more time studying. When you try to encode new information into your brain, the strength of the encoding is directly linked to the intensity of your focus.
Selfcontrol mac code#
The environment where you learn to code has a large influence on your actions and your success.įocus is a foundational component of memory and skill acquisition. If you want to increase the odds of achieving your goal of becoming a programmer, it's important to craft a distraction-free learning environment that allows for long uninterrupted stretches of focus.
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