Women in Product NYC Event Recap: “How to Be Indistractable”

January 23, 2019 at Grubhub Tech HQ

A huge part of being a product manager is connecting other people — whether it be the users to the engineers, the business stakeholders to the product designers, or the Executive team to the data. Because of that, we get a lot of communication. A typical morning might consist of fielding 50 emails, 200 Slack messages (30 DMs or at-mentions and 100-plus pieces of channel chatter), and 7 in-person “Hey can I just grab you real quick…”s.

This responsibility makes the role exciting, but it can make it difficult for PMs to concentrate on more solitary activities that are just as important. It’s hard to properly digest findings from user data or draft a well thought-out product requirements document when a never-ending stream of red pop-ups all demand your attention.

Enter Nir Eyal, tech entrepreneur and author of several bestselling books on building great products and increasing productivity. In front of an audience of 50 women PMs, he talked about what causes distraction and concrete steps for reducing them.

Causes of Distractions

One of the key things that Nir emphasized was that technology we consider to be distractions — Slack, email, Instagram, Twitter — are actually just symptoms of already being distracted. Instead, he encouraged us to reflect when we experience the urge to check email or social media when we have a pressing deadline. Why do I feel the urge to answer a Slack from my boss when I’m having dinner with my friends? What’s causing me to compulsively scroll through Instagram when I’m at work?

Sometimes, the answer lies in an unhealthy set of workplace norms that we can either try to change or learn to cope with. For instance, Nir encouraged attendees to have frank conversations with colleagues to address the always-connected culture at their workplaces. Other times, we may be constantly distracted because the work that we’re doing no longer excites or challenges us — in which case, it might be time to find a new opportunity.

How to Manage Distractions

Nir ended his presentation with a discussion of concrete tactics to manage distractions. Some of them include:

• Acknowledging it when you’re hit with the urge to do something distracting (e.g. checking Instagram) and waiting 10 minutes before you indulge it; chances are, by the time 10 minutes is up, that urge will have gone away
• Blocking off time on your calendar so others don’t schedule over it (e.g. “Email block”, “Concentrate time”)
• Using the “Do not disturb” setting on your phone to let others know when you’re focusing on important work
• Adjusting notification settings on your phone and other devices to reduce the number of “urgent” alerts that you need to check
• Using apps designed to help you focus to minimize distractions from other apps (e.g. Forest app, SelfControl, and Time Guard app)

Exhibit A: Breakout groups succeeding at paying attention while talking about how to better pay attention

After his presentation, attendees broke out into focus groups to come up with their own ways to manage distractions in the workplace. Unsurprisingly for an audience of PMs, many of these suggestions focused around reducing non-critical meeting time and managing emails and Slack. Multiple groups mentioned fiddling with Slack alert settings to only let in critical messages or labeling emails based on how urgently each of them requires a response.

Exhibit B: How to check your phone discreetly during a presentation about checking your phone less

After a quick presentation of the various tactics each group discussed, the audience dispersed for the evening, vowing to less distracted by our phones and devices.

But to be honest — the first thing I did after the session was over? Checking my phone to see what notifications I’d missed.