You looked up and the invoice was gone, and a man was sharpening a knife.
You do not remember opening the video. Nobody decides, at 2:40 on a Tuesday, to watch a stranger sharpen a knife for eleven minutes. There was a gap, a slow page or a hard sentence, and the hand moved on its own. Now you are back, the invoice is colder than you left it, and the first thing you feel is not the eleven minutes. It is the story about yourself the eleven minutes confirm.
A drift is a switch you did not choose
Every switch has a bill, and you pay it on the way back.
Switching from one task to another costs time and errors in the moments right after the switch, even when you saw the switch coming and had time to prepare. A 2003 review of the task-switching experiments found this (Monsell, 2003). It is a review of lab work, so take the shape and not the size. The shape is: the cost lands on the return, not on the leaving.
A drift is a switch you did not plan, so it is two switches. One out, to the knife. One back, to the invoice, with the return cost paid in full and eleven minutes gone in between. The knife was never the expensive part. The way back was.
Interrupted work gets finished faster, and it costs more
Interrupted people finish faster.
In a 2008 lab study, people whose work was interrupted finished it faster than people left alone, and reported more stress while doing it (Mark, Gudith and Klocke, 2008). One study, one lab. But it explains the end of your day. You did get the invoice sent. You also arrived at 5pm wrung out, having paid for the knife video in speed and then paid again in how you felt.
So a drift is not the end of a working day. Its price is quieter than the eleven minutes: a day of small returns, each one paid for, each one adding to the 5pm.
The tab wins because nobody noticed
The problem with a drift is not willpower but how long it takes you to notice.
Alone at a desk, you notice when the video ends and the room comes back. With a friend at the next desk, you notice when they glance over, because you glance at what you are doing. Nothing was said. The glance was enough. This is half of why working next to someone is easier for so many people with ADHD: not only the start, but the noticing.
Noticing early changes the sum. A ten-second drift is one switch back and no minutes lost. An eleven-minute drift is the same switch with eleven minutes on top. The switch cost does not change. The minutes are the part you can shrink, and you shrink them by shortening the time before someone, or something, says "still on the invoice?"
Two things a good noticer must not do. It must not judge, because the story about yourself is already loud enough. And it must not confuse a long run on the right thing with a drift; forty minutes deep in the spreadsheet is hyperfocus, and interrupting it is its own kind of switch. Only the knife is a drift.
What a tool may watch, and what it must not
To notice a drift, something has to look, and looking has a limit.
Say plainly what a tool would need. It needs to know which app is in front, and it needs to know it often, because a drift is measured in seconds. Sometimes the app is not enough: a browser is a browser, whether the tab is the bank or the knife. So it may need the window's title, and on a Mac, reading a window title sits under the Screen Recording permission, which sounds far bigger than it is.
Here is where the limit goes. No screenshots. No recording. Titles read and then dropped from memory, kept for nothing. The only thing written down is the drift itself: the name of the app and the entry from your own list of distracting apps it matched, saved on your Mac and nowhere else. No list of everything you opened. No record of the day. And a switch to turn the looking off whenever you want, in reach, not buried in settings.
Anything more than this is a tool watching you, and a tool watching you is one more thing to drift away from.
How Kaapi does it
Start focus takes the window, and the clock counts up.
During a session, and only then, Kaapi checks which app is in front every 4 seconds. If you have allowed Screen Recording, it also reads the window's title, so the knife tab and the bank tab are told apart. It takes no screenshot and records nothing. Titles stay in memory and are dropped. When what is in front matches an entry on your distracting list, Timi, the small pebble at the bottom right, notices and asks. A drift, the app name and the matching entry from your list, is saved on the Mac only. You can pause the looking from the menu bar at any time. The privacy page says the same.
The rest of the session is quiet. Every 5 minutes by default Timi checks in with one line. "Still on 'Send the invoice'?" "You're 15 minutes in." Otherwise it leaves you to it. Back or Esc leaves the session running. Nothing is counted back at you, and the cost of the switch back is made as small as a glance.
How to do this without Kaapi
You need a noticer, and you need it to be kind.
- Before you start, write the one thing on paper and prop it where your eyes land when you look up from a video. The paper is the glance.
- Say the names of your two drift apps out loud before you begin. A drift you have named is a drift you feel yourself starting.
- Work where someone can see your screen, or on a call with a friend who is working too. Ask them to say "still on it?" if they see a tab change, and nothing else.
- When you notice a drift, do not tally the minutes. Note the time you came back and start the sentence you were on. The return is the win. Nothing is counted back at you.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I open random tabs when I am trying to work with ADHD?
Because a hard sentence or a slow page opens a gap, and the hand fills it before you decide to. The tab is not the problem. The problem is how long it takes to notice: alone, when the video ends; with someone glancing at your screen, when they glance. Shorten the noticing, not the will.
Does switching tasks cost time even if I meant to switch?
Yes. A 2003 review of task-switching experiments found time and errors rise right after a switch even when people knew it was coming and had time to prepare. The cost lands on the return. A drift you did not plan is two switches, out and back, plus the minutes between.
Does an app watching for distractions record my screen?
It should not, and you should read what it collects before you allow it. A drift can be noticed from the app in front and, at most, a window title, with no screenshot and no recording. Titles should be dropped from memory, and only the drift itself saved, on your own machine.
How do I get back on task after a distraction?
Go back to the exact sentence, cell or line you were on, not to the top of the task. The switch back costs more when you have to find your place. Do not count the minutes lost; note the time you returned, and start. Interrupted work still gets finished, and the return is the win.
Sources
- Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 134–140. doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00028-7
- Mark, G., Gudith, D., and Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. CHI 2008, 107–110. doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072