The Distracted Gamer
A reader recently shared with me an interesting observation from his own life.
To provide some context, this reader is a fan of the classic arcade game snake (shown above). This game is hard: as your snake grows, it requires an increasing amount of concentration to avoid twisting back on yourself and ending the round.
What this reader noticed was that whenever he paused the game for a quick interruption (e.g., answering a text or talking to someone who walked into the room), he became significantly more likely to fail soon after returning to play.
These arcade struggles might not sound that surprising, but they turn out to be a great example of a psychological effect that every knowledge worker should know about: attention residue.
The Most Important Theory You’re Ignoring
The research literature on attention residue, which was pioneered by business professor Sophie Leroy, reveals that there’s a cost to switching your attention — even if the switch is brief.
When you turn your attention from one target to another, the original target leaves a “residue” that reduces cognitive performance for a non-trivial amount of time to follow.
This was likely the effect that was tanking my reader’s arcade performance: when he switched his attention to the new target presented by an interruption, and then back to his game, the resulting attention residue reduced his cognitive performance and therefore his game play suffered.
As I argued in Deep Work, this effect can have a profoundly negative impact on knowledge worker productivity.
In more detail, most knowledge workers who claim to single task are actually primarily working on one thing at a time, but punctuating this work with a frequent series of just checks (quick glances at text messages, email inboxes, slack channels, social media feeds, etc…just in case something important has arrived).
This type of pseudo-focus might seem better than old school multitasking (in which you try to work on multiple primary tasks simultaneously), but attention residue theory teaches us that it might be just as bad.
Each one of those just checks shifts your attention. Even if this shift is brief (think: twenty seconds in an inbox), it’s enough to leave behind a residue that reduces your cognitive capacity for a non-trivial amount of time to follow.
Similar to our reader from above losing his ability to play snake at a high level, your ability to write/code/strategize at a high level is significantly diminished every time you let your attention drift.
If, like most, you rarely go more than 10 – 15 minutes without a just check, you have effectively put yourself in a persistent state of self-imposed cognitive handicap. The flip side, of course, is to imagine the relative cognitive enhancement that would follow by minimizing this effect.
To put this another way: if you commit to long blocks without any interruption (not even the quickest of glances), you’ll be shocked by how much sharper and productive you feel.
nice!
Hey Cal,
Your ideas have changed the way I work and think about my career. I love how much more efficient and productive I am now. I finish 8 hours work in 3 hours now. Thank you!
However, I am facing a major challenge in my ability to work deep in office.
I work in an open office, where it is common and acceptable behavior for people to go upto anyone and chat. They would talk to you even when you have your headphones on. This creates a lot of disruption.
The short term solution for that was that I used to work from another floor in the office where people don’t know me, or I hid in a corner in a cafe to be unavailable. This worked for a while since my previous boss didn’t care where or how we worked as long as we got it done.
But my new boss is very particular about us being seated on our desks from 9 to 5. We have tried speaking to her about this explaining how we are more productive in a quieter place, but she is not ready to budge her position.
Any thoughts on how to deal with this will be welcome.
Thanks!
Su –
You’re in a challenging situation. I hope you don’t mind if I make an observation. After several decades in leadership, I’ve noticed some of the strongest employees have developed two skills while remaining highly professional, polite, and friendly.
1) They tend not to get interrupted.
2) If they are interrupted, they able to shorten the interruptions.
This would indicate that not being interrupted is a learned skill.
Great response, Dave. Wish I had you as a manager.
Have a discussion with your boss about the deep to shallow work ratio he/she wants you to hit. Then measure and report. When faced with hard numbers, the boss will have to face the prospect of admitting that he doesn’t want you — his highly trained employee — to do high-level cognitive work, or be more willing to consider changes to his the target. In other words, shift the conversation from what you don’t like to hitting a positive target that you both agreed on.
16 years ago I had an open plan work space with 5 others, and as a compromise I persuaded my buddies to adopt a system where we could have an upside down coffee cup on the top of the desktop computer (on every desk in those days) which meant “I’m not wanting to be interrupted” Getting to to this agreement was a challenge – but when it was working well the (communal) phone could ring and person X would say “Derek’s unavailable but I can get him to call you back” – and a scribble on the whiteboard would record this. I think that we combined it with earphones.
My challenge Dave is your number 2
2. Am I allowing myself to be distracted?
I like the idea of ruthless commitment to metrics. “Hours of productive/deep work”
-Derek
Could you put up a Do Not Disturb sign? I once had a work colleague who would get stressed and very focused at times. We all knew from experience that we needed to leave her alone at those times. The boss would probably be glad to see you so focused on your work. Also I agree with the first reply, you could develop skills that communicate that you don’t want to chat.
Use that new mindset to work; 3 hours for her and the rest 5 figuring out how to work for yourself, to work with focused people and be the boss who play the rules. I’m pretty sure that you are going to be 100% focused… Set new motivations when you feel that your fuel is running out and repeat 😉
Thanks for this post Cal.
However sometimes I feel it is almost impossible to work in a distraction free zone. For example I am a High School teacher. We sit with other teachers at the same room. So If I’d like to do some cognitive work, this is very tough. Because, every now and then one teacher might speak of something. Or they may even knock me to see what I’m doing.
Summer…?
See Cal’s thoughts elsewhere (Deep Work goes into it) on “bi-modal” deep work that teacher / researchers do. Eg a professor might escape to a cabin for the summer break to do their serious writing.
I’m a high school student, and I feel your pain. I’ve had my share of trouble finding the most remote places on campus to study in, as I KNOW my productivity dwindles when my friends find me. At least I can sneak into random empty classrooms after school. The offices look cramped.
Cal
Would you consider checking the time (to make sure you haven’t worked past your work block) an interruption or just check?
No, that’s fine. For a just check to be damaging it has to shift your attention to an unrelated professional context.
A new challenge seems to have surfaced as we delve into the need to devote ourselves to long, uninterrupted spells of work:
Location, location, location.
For many, the ‘open office’ is the norm, and there is no luxury to escape to a quiet corner or a different room. Many businesses have an almost paranoid obsession with staff being ‘visible’.
In some ways, you are insulated from this Cal, being an academic.
But for the majority, the bane of an open office is the reality.
This is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed, as knowledge workers seek the pot of performance gold at the end of the deep work rainbow.
How about studying? Should i learn 50 min and take 10 min break (i think, you proposed that in one of your books) or go with deep work (2h or more)?
Greetings from Poland. Our academic year starts at 1st October. Sorry for any mistakes in my english.
This is great. Regarding the open office – or any other environment where outside interruptions seem to be the norm – my take on these is that it has become expected for me to drop whatever I am doing and respond to the person in front of me. We figured out how to ignore phones (voice mail!), but ignoring someone standing right there is harder.
What I see needs to happen is that we change the mental balance. Rather than focus on being responsive, what if we focus on priorities. And this has to be a shared understanding. “Can you give me a minute?” “Is it critical, can I come by when I finish this?” Even agreed visual cues: headphones on, don’t bother them. Many techniques can really help.
Cal – thanks for the reminder about attention residue – another reason to get out of the inbox and back to deep work. I don’t know how you all tolerate the open office environment – I work from home with no one and I still use ear plugs. It’s just one step in my deep work ritual that Cal recommends people establish for themselves in his book.
Thanks Cal. Fantastic post.
This presents a three-fold challenge to me.
1. Am I initiating my own distractions?
2. Am I allowing myself to be distracted?
3. Am I distracting others?
Your post makes me think Dave, that at some point people are perceptive enough to know who they can interrupt, and ‘get away with it’ versus who they can’t.
Agree. Great way to put it Carl.
That’s great.
I have never read any of Cal Newport’s writings before, but this article genuinely intrigued me and was exactly what I was needing. I recently returned from living in Argentina where I had a very strict schedule and no connection at all with social media for over a year. I felt very productive with each day and was truly amazed by how much I could accomplish in just 24 hours. Upon returning home to the United States it has been a real struggle for me, with the sudden accessibility to Facebook and other social media, to not become distracted or waste time. I have felt a great lack of productivity and ability to concentrate myself lately. I feel that the use of social media is acceptable, if used with purpose and not excessively. But recently starting college I can see just how many students are constantly on their phones or wasting hours of their day on social media. It really is addicting! I feel that many people now days are become less and less productive and living below their full potential of what they could accomplish due to the increased use of technology. I have noticed my little siblings as well, spending less time outside or playing with toys and more time with technology. This post has inspired me to better plan how I will use social media. It won’t kill me to have my Facebook signed out or phone off while doing homework, right? Thank you for this post!
The ideas you said in this really made me think about how I work and basically everything I do Because when I am working on almost anything there is always a moment when I look Away or see somebody or look at my phone. I am going to try your method to see how it works for me because I think it might help me Finnish stuff faster and better. I work In a call center that we just do outbound calls all day but I still manage to look away for a second or end up staring at something in the room. But I think If I tried just staying focused on what I am doing I could get a lot more surveys.
Hi Cal,
I have a question here: what about the pomodoro technique of studying, which basically says you can improve your results by taking a 5 minutes break after 25 minutes of study?
Also, I have heard our attention span is about 20 to 40 minutes. This attention span time can be improved but it’s adviced to take a break after those periods of time and then go back to the task. Is this break beneficial as a study method?
Nice blog!!! I’m new and I will continue reading (sry for my english as it’s not my first language)
Although I definitely agree with the idea that shifting your attention, even minimally, makes it harder to be productive, there is one term in this post which still confuses me. What is meant by non-trivial? Just that it does make a difference? Do we have any measured instances of this? Surely it effects everyone a little differently, right? Perhaps it’s more trivial to one person than another to switch focus. I wish we had a more concrete answer for what the effect of switching your attention is.
Despite my one inquiry, i have to say that this post really caught my attention because I am all too guilty of being a “multitasker.” Or, more realistically, I stop working to check my phone pretty often. This is a great analogy to explain why that is keeping me from being more productive.
HEY CAL!
Love the blog btw. Just a question about attentional residue….i can avoid looking at my social media, email etc, and make sure no one disturbs me while i am working….but what happens if MY OWN THOUGHTS are taking attention away from the task at hand? Aren’t these just as bad? Therefore, having just a thought that last 10-20 seconds leaves a residue as well? Or this not as bad? THANKS!