I have, at times, been a practitioner of turning off notifications, superfluous applications, and other distracting computer softwares so I could "get things done". Sometimes it works! However, I have come to suspect that perhaps it is obscuring a greater problem.

I'm just not focused.

Maybe my task is tedious, my project is poorly-defined, or I don’t have a thread to pull on in order to get started. Whichever it is, the world’s greatest distraction-free, focus-enhancing software isn’t going to fix it.

What I really need is something imminent. A show-and-tell with my team, a milestone to deliver, an item to cross off a list, something to publish for the world. I need a goal and it really helps if I need to achieve it in the next few hours.

Yesterday, I worked for a couple hours towards a show-and-tell with my team. I had Twitter, Campfire, and Rdio open. One or more of these are a possible distraction. But, I knew none of them was going to make my demo better, and so even though I flicked over to them occassionally, I flicked back immediately and got back to work.

No one wants a deadline, but a date and an expectation can prove more useful than I had previously thought.