Dislacktion

What’s dislacktion? That’s what happens when someone interrupts what you’re doing with a Slack ping. - John Kyllonen

This past Monday morning at the ArcStone staff meeting I went on a 10-minute ambling rant about Slack, social media in general and the dangers of working in a state of continual distraction.

I wanted to take a few minutes and attempt to deliver the same message with more clarity and less ambling rant. It is my hope that this will be useful to my fellow ArcStoners, will give our blog readers something to ponder and (most honestly) serve as a reminder to myself to stay focused on what’s important.

My issue is not with Slack or social tools in general – we reap huge benefits by wisely using those tools. There is however, a potential issue of accidentally falling into a stream of continuous semi-distraction. This state of distraction can damage our ability to do really great work and to learn quickly in the way we need to stay on top of our craft. We need to be conscious of this danger.

In order to understand why my spidey senses are tingling it will help if I explain why Slack triggered my rant. If you’re not familiar with Slack, it is a communications tool - think part instant messenger, part social feed. Its most frequent use is to capture an ongoing discussion / information about a specific project or topic - called a “channel.” For example if a team is working together on a specific project, the manager would set-up a channel in Slack to post files, ask questions and generally capture the back and forth conversation about that project in a searchable system. All the team members would subscribe and be alerted when there is a new post. Why are we using it? It’s actually a great tool - very well designed software that enables us to quickly capture collective discussion style information that we’ve never had before.

The problem for me is that channels propagate like bunnies. I now have a new set of inboxes to stay on top of - yet more information vying for more attention. I am tempted to leave Slack open so I don’t miss something. Even when the app is not open, when new messages are waiting, the red message indicator conveniently lets me know. It’s just soooo easy to stop what I’m doing, click over and engage in the discussion. It’s easy. I feel productive. Look I’m working - it’s visible to everyone.

It’s the same challenge in a new form. We seen this before (from old to new) the US mail, phone, email, texting, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Slack… information comes to us many forms demanding our attention. How do we skillfully respond?

To help be clearer about this - let’s give this collective flow of incoming information a name. David Allen, the famous productivity guru and author of the bestseller Getting Things Done (GTD), talked about these incoming information streams and based his GTD system on how to effectively process them. He called them collectively “inboxes.” His golden rules? 1. Have as few inboxes in your life as possible. And 2. - If you can, consolidate them and touch everything only once and at the proper time. Thanks David, I’m trying - but it seems that there is a new inbox created every six months or so, consolidation now feels like a full time job.

At ArcStone, we are creative knowledge workers. Success in our rapidly evolving fields and the shifting landscape of work today depends on being able to do two things and to do them well:

The ability to quickly master hard tasks as the technology, design and marketing fields are constantly evolving. Or more simply, we need to learn quickly and well.
The ability to produce at an elite level in terms of both quality and speed, as our clients rely on and trust us to do.

Both of these abilities require intense focus and uninterrupted time. This slightly modified formula from Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, provides a good rule of thumb (I added mastery).

Time Spent x Intensity of Focus = High-Quality Work & Mastery

A carpenter needs to use a table saw very carefully or he might lose a finger. It’s a powerful tool and vital to his craft. The carpenter respects the tool’s potential for harm (as well as good). We need to be just as careful with how we manage the tools that fill our inboxes or we risk damaging our ability to focus. It is far too easy to develop a habit of checking an app. This desire to know what’s going on and to check-in is basic human nature. We’re social animals, we don’t want to miss something happening within our tribe. The checking quickly becomes a thoughtless habit. Once the habit is formed, the habits take on a life of their own and we unconsciously do them. We’ve all experienced this and know that changing habits once they’re formed ain’t easy.

I’m no luddite, I love technology and have made a successful career of helping people leverage hi-tech tools. That said, I’ve also grown wary in my old age and learned to pay attention to how the tools I’m using affect my mood and productivity. I know that I feel unsettled the more I have to shift gears and change or fracture my focus throughout the day. It becomes harder for me to pay attention in general and can take a few hours to a few days to shake the feeling. That might just be me and my experience but here’s a question to consider. How do you feel after a day of working on twenty-five things versus a day of working on five things?

Slack and other platforms need to be used in ways that respect that precious attention and minimize shifting focus. Their dopamine triggering, siren pinging seductiveness has the potential to prevent us from getting into and staying in productive grooves where we’re learning hard things and doing great work.

Consider this post a big yellow warning tape around Slack, email and social media in general.

Be careful. Respect the focus. Cultivate that focus flower.

The Focus7

In our office lately some people having been doing the Whole30® diet. This diet consists of eating only non-processed foods for 30 days. It’s been fun to watch them become all svelte and lose weight (happy for them). It’s also been fun to tease them by savoring a bagel with cream cheese in front of their faces (happy for me).

I challenge you to try this for a week. Let’s call it the “Focus7.”

Schedule times for email, Slack, and social media. Plan them for when your focus is naturally scattered and you don’t need to concentrate deeply. Perhaps do it in the morning before lunch and then in the late afternoon before the end of the work day. Don’t check it outside of those times. This will be surprisingly hard.
Recharge with a daily walk outside, change your focus and let your mind be idle. Everything has a rhythm including focus; an inbreath requires an outbreath. Spending some time letting your thoughts wander will help you focus later. No headphones - that’s cheating! Just enjoy the natural, city sounds. Consciously try to be idle during the cracks in your day, that leads us to...
Mobile use - resist the urge to pick up your phone and check messages - the same rules apply. Again let your mind recharge when you have idle time. Only check your messages during your allotted times. This will be hard too.
Schedule two or three focused 90-120 minute work sessions on something important and hard every day. These should be focused and heads down – no unnecessary apps, phones, etc. open - close them down! Use the rest of the time in the day for more relational or transactional work.

Obviously some of us have jobs which require more availability and collaboration. That is a different type of attention, but the same general principles apply. The pace of the pulse of attention may have to be accelerated and you may need some help from colleagues to cover for you. But hey, let's back each other up. Alter this program according to your needs.

OK, I guess there may have been a bit of rant still left in me.

Don’t misinterpret this. Slack is great, social media is awesome, texting is useful and email is a game changer.

But attention and focus... That’s love, isn’t it? What’s more important to protect than that?

Take this further…

Use Slack better:

More reading - all three books I recommend highly:

Topics: Inside ArcStone