> Finally, the world is asleep and even a person who has trouble focusing in the face of distraction has a chance of getting something done. "The world is asle

> Finally, the world is asleep and even a person who has trouble focusing in the face of distraction has a chance of getting something done. "The world is asleep" is basically my definition of serene and peaceful. --- A while back, there was a national holiday, so I had the day off. I didn't actually have anything I wanted to do with that day, so I used it to plan out my next work project. It was a very productive day where I went from being very unsure of how to do the project to having a blueprint that directed what I did for months to come. The project would be in a much worse place if it weren't for the thinking I was able to do on that one day. It wasn't a productive day in the sense that I got a lot of things done (my usual definition of productivity), but it was productive in the sense that I got some important, deep thinking done. It's rare to get a chance to do such deep thinking. This kind of productivity is hard to achieve in the face of distractions. But I think it is actually worse than that: It is hard to achieve when there is even a _risk_ of distractions. When my brain knows that someone could demand my attention at any time, it seems to limit the amount of working memory, focus, and time I can spent thinking about something. But if I know that I don't have to pay attention to interruptions, the problem I'm thinking about can take over and I can spend time swimming in the problem instead of just splashing my toes in. All this is a long-winded way of saying that knowing you _might_ be interrupted can be almost as bad as actually being interrupted.