Ok, so I finished watching all of the Being Focused and Indistractable quest videos but I've yet to journal about the last week's worth of content.
Does my workplace culture perpetuate distraction? For the most part, we do a pretty good job of avoiding distraction. I've set up my desk area that I can't really see anyone else naturally unless they are intentionally trying to talk to me. Aside here, but one of my external triggers is traffic outside, but I want natural sunlight coming through. I just need some sort of shade / blockers / blinds from the ground up so that sunlight can come in fully but I don't have to see movement on the street. When I'm in deep work mode or most people for that matter, we do a pretty good job of limiting physical interaction, in a positive sense lol. We just keep that communication to Slack, even if we're only sitting 5 feet from one another. A couple times a week, Tripp will come over and show me a funny video or we'll talk sports with Beck. If I'm in deep work, I'll put my headphones in, or if they're already in, I'll raise the volume of the Alpha / Theta waves. If I'm in medium / light work, I'll probably engage in the discussion.
It's the digital distractions that are more of the culprit as a whole at work. I've already addressed Slack and email and my phone and laptop for myself. I think it's during meetings that we've been historically most distracted. One point is on devices at meetings. Another is on discussion itself as a distraction. Is Slacking during meetings appropriate? Like inter-meeting Slacking - people that are also in the meeting Slacking me / the group we're in in the middle of a meeting. I'd say no, unless it's truly urgent, in which case we should go outside the meeting and discuss that urgent item or wait until we're out of the meeting. If it's a topic within the scope of the meeting that the person is there for, ask them verbally. If it's within the scope of the meeting and they're not there and attaining an answer or insight from them while the meeting is still ongoing is a possibility, then I'd say that's an acceptable use case. If it's out of scope of the meeting but it's important, a decision has to be made if it's important enough to step out and handle or wait until the meeting is over. Here are some of the main variables at play when making these quick <1 second decisions.
Priority (combination of importance and urgency)
Scope of the meeting
Attendance (are they in the meeting or not?)
Message type (meeting minutes vs notes vs questions, etc.)
I'm jumping the gun here a bit by jumping to solutions before the opportunity is fully articulated but potential ideas include:
Public notes vs private notes
Designated scribe for the meeting (doesn't mean others can't take notes though)
Focus cube to display when we've gone off on a tangent
For meetings scheduled longer than 1 hour, we need at least a quick 2-3 min break every 45 min - 1 hour
Ask people anonymously what they think about devices in meetings
The thing is people don't realize that having lack of focus in meetings let's say has in impact on our ability to focus individually. The inverse is also true. It's like the chicken or the egg. You can't have one without the other really so raising awareness about both and addressing both is important as it takes a holistic view to focus and be indistractable.
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