[peterhartree]

> If this is true Then it also presents a unique opportunity. I.e. There should be a very real and observable productivity boost from being able to ignore

B J Fogg, who gets brief mention in this article, teaches his students to cause behaviour by making the behaviour easy and then delivering timely triggers [1]. If you find yourself behaving in ways you don't reflectively endorse, your basic approach should be to flip the Fogg model upside down – avoid triggers and make it harder.

In my own case, that's meant disabling notifications and blocking websites and apps. I also hacked a Chrome extension which applies the "avoid triggers and make it harder" idea to Gmail [2]. The extension has several thousand users, many of whom reclaim 30-60 minutes of focussed work each week which would otherwise be lost to compulsive inbox processing.

[1] http://www.behaviormodel.org/

[2] https://inboxwhenready.org

[danohu]

Easier than avoiding triggers -- and almost as effective -- is just to delay the response. Let yourself check your phone, but only 10 minutes after you feel the urge to do so.

This is much easier than complete abstinence, but breaks down the habit-forming link between trigger and instant gratification.

And just as you say, it's something I started doing after reading about training [1] and inverting the priciples

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31052.Don_t_Shoot_the_Do...