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053 How Do You Stay Focused & Avoid Distractions As A Software Developer? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Wesley asked, How do you stay focused as a developer and avoid distractions?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: How do you really focus in on what you have to do and not just bounce from thing to thing?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk about that in this episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Distractions are a killer for development.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever you have a distraction pop up, that's going to take away from your concentration.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you're writing software and you have a pop, say something pop in, whether it's a person or it's a meeting that comes up, or just even a pop-up on your computer, that can take up to 15 minutes to recover from.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you only work eight hours a day, and I say only, you try and work only eight hours a day.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you do, if you have five distractions in a day, that takes out an eighth of your day just by distractions.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: That is a ton of time.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Every four distractions is an hour lost.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's something you want to avoid as much as possible.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different techniques that I use to try to help limit and mitigate distractions.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: One technique I do a lot is batching.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever I am going to do, for example, recording of the the this dev questions podcast, I'm gonna avoid doing just one.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna try and do two or three or four or five recordings at once.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why is because by doing so, I'm not only going to get a bunch done at once, but I'm also going to compress the time that it takes.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when I do a recording for Dev Pod the Dev Questions Podcast, I get my information, I research the topic, I write out my outline, I figure out what I'm gonna say, I practice what I'm gonna say, I create my notes, and then I hit record.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But instead of doing all of those steps one by one by one and then hitting record, I do all those steps up until hitting record five times for five different episodes.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I I prepare for all of them because then I can be in a certain frame of mind.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the frame of mind right now of writing outlines, and so I'll write all of my outlines, and then I'm the frame of mind of really coming up with the order in which I'm gonna talk about things and really kind of fleshing out what I'm gonna say.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I go through all of those, and then it's the busy work time where I move things over to my teleprompter or I move things, you know, into the different places so that Dan can do the post-processing and I get everything ready.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's just busy work.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can do that with music on, I can do that with people around, I can do that, you know, while I'm eating a snack.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things like that I can do, and so I'll save those things for when I know distraction is gonna be high anyway.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it comes to recording time, I'm gonna find a time that's gonna be distraction free.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna let everybody know I'm recording now, I'm gonna have a time picked out when it's already a downtime, and then I'm going to go through and do the first one.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna record it and save it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's raw.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have not done any processing on it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm gonna go to the next one, I'm gonna record it, I'm gonna save it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Go to the next one, record it, and save it.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when I'm done all let's say five or six episodes, then what I'll do is I'm done recording.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I can turn off the lights, I can relax, I might have a you know, a soda, I might have a snack, I'll chill out, and I'll start doing the post-processing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I do that, I am focused on during recording, I'm focused on recording.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I am, you know, making sure I'm mentally there, I'm making sure that I'm mentally on, and I'm thinking through all the things that you have questions on and trying to answer those.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so that can be a more um stressful time, not in terms of, you know, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen, but more in terms of just spending a lot of effort, a lot of brain power and making sure I get my points across.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm focused on that for a long period of time, if I just keep going and try and do it all day long, I'll be exhausted, I'll be wiped.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if I do that for a period of time and then I plan a relaxing time afterwards, a time when I give myself permission to watch YouTube videos and just sit back with a drink.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that allows my mind to unwind, to relax again, to give that relief from the pressure.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I have, you know, a time of high intensity and a time of low intensity, just like working out.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: You don't just, if you want to bulk up as an athlete, you don't just spend 16 hours a day in the gym.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be effective, especially not if you're doing one muscle group.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna actually hurt your muscles.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, you need to give your muscles time to relax and recover.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Your brain is no different.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So do some high-intensity work and then give yourself some time to recover.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: That will help with distractions.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Also, by having those set times where you say, I know I'm gonna relax at this time when I'm done with this.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: By having that, you'll be less likely to be distracted by things now.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can say, I'll get to that in 10 minutes, I'll get to that in an hour.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that will help with distractions.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, along with that, is gonna come making sure that you block off that time from not just your calendar and your people around you, but also from your devices.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: If I have my phone on and I get emails, I'm gonna be going, uh, uh, uh, and that's distraction.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna looking over my phone, I'm gonna be glancing down at is that message important?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I better answer that.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and before you know it, I'm off on a rabbit trail.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I will flip my phone upside down, I'll turn it on vibrate, I'll put it in airplane mode, whatever it takes to make sure that that's not catching the corner of my eye and distracting me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it's time, I will go there and catch up on everything I missed.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So having planned out times really helps.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Batching really helps.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Doing things in groups.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to development, I can't develop for 15 minutes.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I need to put more time in the calendar than that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise, what happens is I'll get in, I'll start to get up to speed and where I'm at and where I need to do, and it's time to do something else.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if lunchtime, let's say I'm going out for lunch, I'm gonna leave at 11:45.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that really means that I'm no good after about 11:15.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because by that point, I'm starting to think about ooh, what time do I need to get my shoes on?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, do I need to, and thinking through all the things I have to do to get ready to go.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I'll do is I will schedule that time.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say that the half hour or so before, I'll schedule that for answering emails and doing other things that are uh low power mode, distraction type things.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I can do um without a lot of thought and do pretty quickly.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll do that in the half hour leading up to it, because it's already gonna be shot time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing as much as I can during times when I know I'm going to not be available for heavy thinking things.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing development.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have a block of usually at least 45 minutes, more like an hour plus, where I'll block off.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is development time.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I will focus in on development.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: When I do, again, distractions go away.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I turn off as much as possible.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're in the work environment and you're in a cubicle, this is really hard.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is really hard to do right because you're constantly being uh bombarded with distractions, whether it's a person walking by your cubicle, whether it's a person walking up and distracting you, whatever it is, there's going to be more distractions.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you can do it, what I encourage you to do is get a pair of noise-canceling headphones.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: This was a major investment when I didn't have a lot of money that was a massive impact in my distraction-free development.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I used to work in a college and I was the IT director.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: There was nothing but distractions.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: That was my life.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I also was the only developer, and we had to have stuff built because we couldn't afford to do it otherwise.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have to build things, but I was also being constantly distracted.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I even had a person working in my office with me.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I bought a pair of Bose noise canceling headphones.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was, I was not making much money, and yet those were those were a massive investment for me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had to save up quite a bit for them.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I tell you what, when you turn those on and you can't hear a person talking, that eliminates a lot of distractions.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you can face your computer and your computer doesn't have maybe it has a wall behind it or some other way where you're just facing um inanimate objects, that really helps too.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're not seeing a person walking in front of you all the time.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can face your monitor the right direction so you're you don't have your um your eyes towards people but away from people, that can be a big help.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you can turn off a sound, turn off the visuals, that will really improve your concentration.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna probably have to communicate with people at work.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some bosses do not like this.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked for bosses where they're like, you can't wear headphones, you've got to be available.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they're the boss.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what are you gonna do, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as you build credibility with your boss, you can start to work on communication of that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you know what?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to do one hour a week of distraction-free development.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is that possible?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Could I just do one hour a week?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or I put headphones on so I can't hear people?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you can even pick the music.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you don't want me to have music on, no problem, I'll play a sounds of a cafe, or I'll play one of those, you know, meaningless sound noise generation things that will just give me the um the ability not to hear the background.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: If they think that, oh, you know, you listen to music and you're you know distracted at work, you can say this is what I listen to and show them and say, What I'm doing is just tuning out the distractions because I want to produce a better product for you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: That may work, it may not, but give it a shot.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Try it out, test it, show off what the difference is at the end of the hour.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Say, man, this is what I produced because I was distraction-free.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Distractions are a killer.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: So eliminate as many as you can.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's also gonna be your brain.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can't get away from it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: My brain, I'll tell you what, I find myself so deep in rabbit holes sometimes, it's not even funny.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where I will try and retrace my steps to I was developing, how did I get here?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll go back, you know, step by step by step and find out there's a little something that I'm like, oh, I should look that up.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know what?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I need to purchase this on Amazon before I forget it.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, before I do that.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I've gone down four, five, and six steps because my brain just keeps firing from thing to thing to thing.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: What helps is first of all identifying you're doing it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you start to say, oh, wait, I'm being distracted, that helps because your brain starts going, oh wait, that's a distraction, not just that's a good thing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's part of it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Another part is I heavily use notepad, not notepad, not uh Word, not you know, whatever to-do list you're thinking of.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I use Notepad and I put down everything in Notepad.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it sometimes it doesn't even get to notepad, it gets to my physical notepad on my desk, where when I have a distraction, I will write it down, whether it's in notepad on the computer or in notepad on my desk.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even save the notepads at first, I just pop it up and type it out, and I'm done.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Anything to get it done quick.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: If it takes more than about five seconds to do, then it's too slow.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I don't use fancy tools.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I use simple tools because they get the job done quick.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want to get it out of my brain so my brain's not concerned about remembering it.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not thinking, ooh, don't forget to buy milk, don't forget to buy milk.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: When you're trying to be thinking about how I write this if statement, and you got this, you know, competition in your brain, don't forget to buy milk, if this then that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's confusing to your brain.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So put it down in notepad, and then you can go, ah, I can forget it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then go back to your work.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can, that can help keep you focused and maybe not even count as a distraction that causes you that 15 minutes of reset.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: So write things down, keep lists, keep notes somewhere.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Don't try to remember things, focus on batching as much as possible.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have a if you have tons of meetings at work, first of all, try really hard to turn them into emails.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you can, focus on that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Show your boss, hey, I'm in meetings 20 hours a week.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You pay me for 40 hours a week.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Half of my time is about talking about work, not actually doing it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Can we change this?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And talk through how do you get from talking about work to doing work more?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then whatever meetings you have, start seeing compress them.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe in the mornings, your morning times are meeting time, and then the afternoons, try and save for programming, or maybe it's the opposite.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Figure out what works best for your brain, too.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: For me, the morning time I spool up.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm not a uh a big morning person, I'm a night person.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the mornings, I do emails, I do meetings, I do things that don't take my utter concentration, things that don't take my deep work concentration.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I get those out of the way as soon as possible.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find that when I respond to YouTube comments, it's most likely in the morning because that's when I am jumping on.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going through the comments, answering, you know, answering posts, just thanking people for watching the videos, kind of things.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't take my full deep work concentration.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I still have to think through things and concentrate, but not nearly to the extent of programming or of creating content for videos.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: So think through your rhythms and then plan your day accordingly, and then trust in that.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a set time and you say, you know what, I'm gonna answer emails between eight and nine in the morning and between four and five in the afternoon, those are my times.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Then you don't have to think, oh, is there a new email coming in?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you see a new email come in, you're like, ah, I'll get to that at 4 p.m.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know you don't have to worry about it.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it helps with distractions.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So setting up systems like this where you you batch things out, you map out your day, you write down your distractions, write down the things you have to remember in and then forget about them.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where you focus on one thing at a time, these are the things that will help you in distractions, but it's gonna come down to how disciplined you are.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: It takes work, it's not something that's natural, but you can work on your discipline.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can work on improving.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you are highly distractable, you are ADHD, you really struggle with that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: But you can still work on improvement.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be perfection, it just has to be one step in the right direction.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Every step you take in the right direction is an improvement, is a bettering of yourself and of your output.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So focus on making one step in the right direction.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the question.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoy answering these questions.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a question that you want answered, go to I amtimcorey.com, go to the podcast page, and fill out the form to get your question potentially answered on this podcast.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcore.com.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamtimCore.com and enroll in a course.