Self-Interruptions Aren’t Just Killing Your Productivity, They’re Killing You
Every 5 minutes of focus, 25 of useless distractions. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Anyone who works online is subject to external interruptions, such as calls, emails, notifications, etc.
Anyone knows how uncomfortable it is when some unwanted message sneaks in our face, especially when we’re focused on something else.
However, there is a type of interruption that is much more frequent and more difficult to avoid.
The interruption that comes from itself.
Studies show that self-interruption is as frequent or more frequent than external interruptions.
To the point where it becomes an addiction that affects anyone who is surrounded by screens, and you need to know how this mechanism works. See:
What is Self-Interruption
Working or studying, in 99% of cases, is a daunting task.
What happens is that our brain understands that the long-term reward is valuable enough to spend 8, 10, 12 hours a day doing these tasks.
Getting a promotion, passing a doctoral exam, or earning more money are time-consuming but really valuable rewards.
This reward system is processed by the limbic system of our brains, releasing “pleasure hormones” such as dopamine and cortisol.
The moment we introduce screens into our routines, we get used to receiving more immediate rewards, in the form of likes, messages, notifications, etc.
In the organic inability to be “multitaskers”, we kind of addict our limbic system.
We are tempted to seek immediate rewards over long-term rewards.
In the search for continuous microdoses of satisfaction hormones, any minimally time-consuming work becomes tedious.
And then we surrender to self-interruption.
Boring work makes us unable to concentrate, and we rush to the screens.
Or there could even be sabotage, where we disguise a task as “Google something” and before we know it, we’re jumping between links, apps and abandoning the original purpose of that search.
The Blackhole of Self-Interruption Cycles
The average focus time of a connected person is getting shorter and shorter, between six and thirty minutes.
And every self-interrupt has a huge impact on our routine.
Research shows that it takes an average of 23 minutes to return to the original task!
Imagine you’re taking a car trip, and every six minutes you drive, you park the car and get stopped for another 25. We don’t do this on a car trip, but we’re constantly nurturing that habit while we’re…productive?!
As these habits solidify in our minds, they become independent of reward.
So, we started to self-interrupt to check news and social media without realizing it.
Other studies reveal that we have a resistance to interruption, and when that resistance is broken, we become more susceptible to self-interrupting again and again.
It’s like thinking:
“since I got screwed and lost concentration, now I’m going to sink into stupid distractions”!
The Subtle Damages of Self-Interruption
Imagine the following scenario:
You are focused and performing a task at high performance. Suddenly, your phone rings or someone comes to talk to you.
Over the next few hours, you’ll have an 8% higher self-interrupting probability, because that initial event broke your resistance to interruptions.
At the end of the day, your obligations are totally out of date, and what is the solution?
Work faster!
So, suddenly you overload your already tired body and mind from a strenuous day.
With a bigger workload in less time, there is more pressure, and your stress levels increase.
In the long term, this is related to chronic anxiety problems, depression, and panic disorder.
Is There a Solution for This?
We are moving towards a life that alternates between useless distractions and intense work.
It’s as if every day is a roller coaster that alternates between boredom and high pressure, which is something adverse to a healthy body.
To make matters worse, self-interrupts can come in the guise of productivity, like when we search the internet.
Therefore, for a set of factors, there is a set of solutions, not a single solution. Check it out:
- Separate your work inputs in one place, like a whiteboard or a repository, and don’t start any other tasks that don’t come from there.
- Prioritize your tasks according to a relationship between value and difficulty. The higher the value and the lower the difficulty, the higher the priority, stimulating the limbic system’s sense of reward.
- Create closed cycles of break execution, where rest and work have defined periods. The Pomodoro technique is great in this regard.
- Make sure one task is finished before starting another, to avoid any stimulus to multitasking.
- Turn off chat notifications, remove mailboxes, smartphones, and social media in front of you.
- Create a quiet, clean, good-smelling, and aesthetically pleasing work environment to stimulate your brain to remember long-term rewards.
- Monitor your long-term habits to remind yourself that you’re on the path to something time-consuming but infinitely more rewarding.
