Freedom interviews Tyler Shores about avoiding digital distractions.
Tyler is doing a PhD in Education at Cambridge. Some of his advice to fellow academics is to
Keep[] track of your progress with any kind of word count spreadsheet, or other means of tangibly tracking what you are doing. This kind of feedback and ability to quantify is what social media and distractions also rely upon to keep us hooked — so we can use those principles to our advantage.
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The open-ended nature of [academic] work is challenging. There can be no shortage of angles to chase up. Academics are no strangers to productive procrastination. Having social pressure can be a wonderful way to not take too long with things.
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The older I get, the more I seem to realize how important sleep is. Matthew Crawford talks about the science of sleep and why we need it in his book, Why We Sleep.
For the full interview, see Freedom’s blog. For more about using Freedom to beat distractions, see “How to Use Freedom to Support Your Priorities.”
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