How much time do you spend in front of a screen? If you are like most of us, you spend around 7 hours every day. 1
And if you are a Filipino, you spend around 11 hours per day! 2 That's 70% of your waking life!
Usually, the explanation we give ourselves as to why we spend so much time in front of a screen is that we have to work, study and perhaps add some entertainment.
The problem is that entertainment takes priority in our minds and as a result, we procrastinate with our work and other necessary activities.
Thus, a session that would ideally require 2.5 hours of work and 1 hour of leisure in front of the computer, phone or TV, becomes 5 hours of leisure and 2.5 hours of work.
Yes, the average person spends only around 2.5 hours in working related activities when he is in front of a computer, regardless of the amount of time he spends "working". 3
So, we transform a 3.5 hours (2.5 hours working, 1 of leisure) session into a very inefficient 7 hours session, not to mention the Filipinos
Wouldn't it be awesome if we had the ability to be in front of the computer only for what is needed and nothing more? being super focused on our tasks at the beginning of the day and then avoid the computer and enjoy the other parts of our lives? 4
What is stopping us from achieving this goal? We have the time, but we use it for other things. Online and offline distractions.
Online Distractions
There are a lot of solutions to remove online distractions from your phone and computer. 5 Some of them work great and others not so much, but we can say that it is a solved problem.
I use an app on my computer called "Cold Turkey" that blocks any website or app, and on my phone, I use an app called "Stay Focused".
In both, I use a password that is written in a notebook away from me. If I suddenly feel the urge of checking some feed (Twitter, YouTube, HackerNews), I need to go for the notebook, type the password, change the settings of the blocking app. Usually, that is enough for me to waste less time with online distractions. 6
Offline Distractions
Unfortunately, all of those solutions have a big problem. I can block all the internet, leave me only with my work app, but I can get up and leave the computer to do some random, low-value activity.
Maybe I changed my source of procrastination, but still, I have to go back to work and the session extends for most of the day.
My proposal to eliminate offline distractors
If I had the money, I would hire someone to chain me at my desk and take the key away for a set amount of time. Lets say 52 min.7 Then he or she would come back and unchain me for 17 min.
We would do this for 3 sessions per day and I would be very productive and efficient.
Unfortunately, I have the fear of an earthquake and that I will be trapped because the key manager decided to escape instead of doing his job. Also, I suppose it is costly.
My second proposal to eliminate offline distractors
Every week I think that I finally solved this problem only to go back to my proposal No. 1 as the best solution.
But this time I think is different or at least this time involves cryptocurrency.
PerfectFocus.work
What is perfectfocus.work? First a house of cards. Before using it you should know that my coding skills are not the best and I have only spend a few hours working on it. My purpose was to try an idea and not to build the perfect system.
The idea is very basic. You send some NANO (A cryptocurrency without transaction fees) to a random address generated for the session, select how long you would like to be chained to your desk and push the "Focus" button.
At random times during your session, a button accompanied by a sound, is going to be shown and you need to click it within 30 seconds.
If you clicked all the buttons you are going to be presented with a QR code at the end of your session, that you can scan and get back your NANO.
But if you didn't click all the buttons, the seed (key to get your NANO back) is going to be lost forever.
I have been testing perfectfocus.work for the last few days and I'm very pleased with the results. I usually end my work before breakfast and I have already done 4 hours of very focused work.
If we consider that most people can achieve around 2.5 hours per day, me included, 4 is a dream come true. No to mention that I can do most of my work without any interruptions online or offline.
Why it Works?
If you mix the ability to block out distractions of other solutions with being chained to your desk. You have only two choices. Productivity or Boredom.
At first, we are going to try boredom, it might look easy from the outside, it is a passive activity. But as you probably know, having prolonged times of boredom is almost physically painful.
So you're going to do the less painful activity, your work.
Without having the compulsion to stand up at every moment, only for what is really important (yes, perfectfocus.work has a "Take a Break" button with 25% of the focus time that you can manage as you like). You can have uninterrupted sessions that will maximize the power of your undivided attention.
Finally, because you pushed all of those non-essential activities outside of your working time. You will finish early and have more free time to do what you want. Preferable activities that don't involve screens.
Better than Pomodoro
I've read that many users of the Pomodoro technique find it very helpful. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those users and many report the same problem.
It's easy for me to start the first and second Pomodoro, but I always end up transforming a 5-minute break into a full day of procrastination.
With perfectfocus.work, we have a limited amount of time to go for a drink, stretch our legs, go to the bathroom, etc. You can manage it as you like but you will never take more than 25% of the total focused time, when your "break time" reaches zero, the timer keeps moving forward and the random button can appear at any moment. And if you are paranoid like me, you are going to use as little as you can for a possible emergency in the future, like earthquakes.
Punishment as a Motivator
If you bet 100 USD that you can be chained in front of your computer with everything blocked except Microsoft Excel for 4 hours, I’m sure you can create some magic. What about blocking everything and only leaving your terminal and some offline documentation? The sky is the limit.
From your experience, you should know that we are more motivated by the fear of losing something than by gaining something (Loss aversion). We can exploit this tendency to keep us in front of the computer when is more efficient (A few long periods instead of many short ones)8
The Future of Perfectfocus.work
The idea is so simple that I'm still skeptical about its usefulness. But if I can keep the rhythm of the last few days without burnout, I plan to keep improving it with additional features.
At the moment is a "dumb" app. By "dumb" I mean that it doesn't know if you have send some Nano to start the timer automatically, how much have you sent, the price of Nano, etc. 9
During the week I built a Nano Node 10, and the features mentioned above were available. Unfortunately, my setup wasn't powerful enough and some features took longer than I would want so I remove the connection to the network for now. If other people find it useful in its current form, I will be glad to pay for a server and add some cool features.
Right now, the more convenient way to use perfectfocus.work is to use a wallet on your phone (I use Natrium). You can scan the QR codes to send and get your Nano back. But I would like to integrate Nano wallets inside of the app to avoid the temptation to use your phone for other things. We could have both options and let the user decide what fits their convenience and security needs.
As I told you before, it is a house of cards. At the moment I haven't lost any Nano to a bug, but a simple F5 will do the job. Do you like the idea and want to contribute? Let me know, there is a lot to be done.
Conclusion
It is impressive the amount of time we waste in the name of "work". And is not surprising, the brain is a machine build to look for dopamine and most of the time it will go for the low hanging fruit.
If we confront the low hanging fruit (cheap dopamine) with our work, we are setting ourselves up to lose.
The result, extended amounts of "Work" that in reality is not work. It’s long sessions of (insert popular website or random offline activity) interrupted by some distracted work.
If we learn to filter online and offline distractions from our work, we are going to be able to do more in less amount of time.
We have the tools to block online distractions, use them. For offline distractions, please give perfectfocus.work a try and let me know if the concept works for you. I hope it does.
BTW If you want to get some Nano to test the app, you can buy from Behance or go to a faucet to get some small amounts for free.
Known bugs if you decide to use perfectfocus.work:
Use it in sessions of at least 15 minutes. Lower numbers could make the buttons overlap. For a better experience, use it in long sessions (hours).
When you write something into "Minutes to Focus" and then delete it, you are going to hear the notification sound of the button. Only the React Gods know why.
The app lacks a button to test the sound before starting the session to make sure you have the proper volume, for now, you can use the previous bug as a replacement.
The randomness of the buttons is not as random as I will like.
There is little difference when one is in a focus session and when one is taking a break. (I must make it more obvious to avoid confusion).
The page shown when you fail needs a lot of love, for now is only a message letting you know how disappointed I'm of you.
Footnote
Worldwide, the average person spends a total of 6 hours and 55 minutes looking at a screen each day, this is only for internet-related activities.
The exact number is 10:56, 5:56 hours on the phone and 5:02 hours on mobile
The exact number is 2 hours and 48 minutes according to RescueTime
I know, not everyone can avoid the computer after some initial work in the morning. But even having done 80% of your daily work by early morning should produce an awesome feeling.
Stop using those provided by Apple and Google, it is not in their best interest to make a very efficient tool to substantially reduce the use of their products.
I only allow myself to waste 5 minutes per hour on my phone. You will be amazed how much you can do in those 5 minutes.
According to Time Doctor the ideal chunk of time for focused work.
There is a lot of research with evidence showing that having long periods of focused work is more efficient than many short periods of work. If you are interested I recommend the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. Reading about context switching might be useful too.
You can even run it locally. It doesn't require an internet connection to work right now.
A set of Nano nodes makes the network capable of processing every transaction, and you can use it to obtain data from the Nano network.