The Laptop Distraction Principle vs my bikini brain

This laptop covers more than my underwear, so its fine!

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

So I had an idea. It felt so amazing that I had to get up, off my ass right that second to go write an entire essay about it. It felt immense. So I left my bed and crossed the room, already wiggling my fingers in anticipation of crashing excellence into this keyboard like a mighty tsunami. I get to to my desk, I open my computer that I had left on since last night. I only need to unlock it to get started…

Did you guys know that Marques Brownlee did a whole 47 minute video about what he REALLY thinks about the iPhone 12? I just switched from Android to Apple so I love taking in some thoughts about different hardware and how they work with the mobile ecosystems. After all, our phones are our sub-brains and we need to respect how they work.

Oh that’s right! My tsunami idea. What was I going to say about tidal waves again?

I saw this really great article about Eminem titled, “How Eminem Conquered Black Music (and White Privilege) With ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’” that looks super entertaining. I can’t listen to most of it now, but it was one of my favorite albums back in college. There’s a part where I broke off, half way through, when the author starts talking about Em’s feud with the Source hip hop magazine. I remember that! It’s always fun to get additional information about events I actually remember happening. It makes me feel a bit old, but…

WHAT AM I DOING? My idea! Crap… what was it? I was reading about something, and it just sort of popped up. What was it? I was on the Root right? The one about the kid drinking pee at a sleep over, or that video of Andrew Cuomo giving he world’s worst apology for all those “gross boss” sexual harassment allegations and not resigning. I hope they protest at his house. Damn… I lost it again… I had a whole thing planned out and it’s gone. Just like that. It’s gone.

There’s a trend I have with my technology where I leave it on overnight. I do this so that I can jump back in where I left off or I keep all my tabs open in order to make sure I remember what I was reading. I do not think this is working. I don’t think it’s just me either.

I was fortunate enough to the James Altucher Show Podcast with Cal Newport; he’s the guy that wrote a book on deep work I got into several months ago, now he’s got a new book about “too many emails” and how that just wrecks our paltry human attention spans. He mentioned early how swapping our attention, even for seconds at a time, can drastically ruin any focus we’ve built up. It makes us worse at everything and makes everything take longer to do. I felt like he was talking directly to me.

My efforts to leave my workstation in the same state for ease of use when I return doesn’t actually help me move faster or get more done. It actually distracts me to the point I can’t remember an idea I had 5 literal seconds ago. My beautiful tsunami was reduced to a puddle. The smartphone is even worse as it’s an addiction machine filled with other, tinier addiction applications tailor made to your specific vices (thank you Nak! I’m elite 3 now!) The entire device actually does very little in the form of anything work like that can’t be done more efficiently anywhere else.

This is fine. I think work sucks. However, if I’m going to do it, I need to be as efficient and effective as possible. I may be a champagne socialist, but that doesn’t mean I want to be bad at the things I choose to do. So I will be committing myself to some small changes for now. I’m going to be sure to turn off my computer when I start using it and take advantage of the “do not disturb” function on the iPhone before hiding it in my bag or in another room. Now that I need ideas every day, I can’t afford to lose one on a walk across the room.

I really hope you can.