Social media distraction

I hit Facebook at least 5 times a day, twitter  at least 10 times, gmail around 5-10 times, HN at least twice. Amidst these, there are multiple times I chat on IM, answer phone calls or read messages. At the outset, this behavior colludes concentration and focus required for churning out good software products. Nicholas Carr describes this behavior more elaborately in his book The Shallows. He describes what the internet and google especially, is doing to the human brain.

Is this rampant multitasking essentially bad ? While it's a debatable question, I think it's bad for creativity. Anyone who's seen John Cleese's video on youtube will immediately recognize this. For creativity to bloom in your mind, you need a meditative sort of an atmosphere, in which you can let your thoughts flow freely. This has to be done for a specific duration of time, let's say 30 minutes to an hour. Today's internet setting, like the one I've described as my day-day affair, is extremely crippling for unleashing creativity and without creativity, innovation is crippled as well. 

While I don't believe that my behavior is an exception, there are measures that can be taken to void distraction and be more focused and creative. Several thought leaders have suggested these methods but I personally find these very hard to follow:

1. Wake up early, between 5.30 and 6 and reserve about 30 minutes for creative thinking by just sitting still and letting the thoughts race across your mind.

2. Do not open email as the first order of the day. 

3. Focus on the most difficult task of the day, first. 

4. Reserve time slots for email and social networking activities. Preferably twice or thrice a day. Definitely not early in the morning.

5. Take scheduled breaks during the day to just walk around.

6. Finally, before hitting the bed, just remember a gist of your completed tasks.

I'm trying out most of these suggestions, but I find sitting still to be the toughest, closely followed by waking up early. I've been moderately successful at not checking email as the first order of the day and taking scheduled breaks for walks are fairly easy. 

I am getting tired of these addictive social media habits, and can feel their effects on my mind. However, it's very difficult to get out of this addiction, one because it's so damn easy to type a URL in a browser and get distracted. Reminds me of a friend who said why it's so hard to quit smoking - it's so damn easy to find a cigarette and light it.

Beta launch

So, after a lot of deliberation I launched the beta version of our app in the Android Play Store. I was quite scared that something feature might not work and piss off the initial users who might never return to the app again. So did my level best to fix all minor and obvious issues and finally put the app in the android play store. True to my fear, I had to do an immediate upgrade as I had missed some basic elements such as launcher icon and google analytics.

This was not an easy process. First, I found out that there was already another app with the name SocialEyez on the play store. So had to look for another name. I'm really bad at coming up with names but with some luck came up with a decent name 'TripLaud'. The name has nothing to do with the beta version but it is about a bigger play I'm thinking about. If we get sufficient user traction within the next couple of months, and if people find this app useful, we'll not only improve the app but build some exciting new features as well.

Then there was the debate of a free app v/s a charge app. I read several theories and articles about pricing but was not too enamored by the idea of charging for an app. Moreover,  this app is a social utility app, an area that is flooded with free stuff. So this was an easy decision.

The tougher decision was about the openness, should I keep the source proprietary or make it public. I saw a couple of upsides in keeping the source open.
1. User participation - One of the major issues in mobile app user traction is early adoption. Perhaps an open source app might attract a particular breed of early adopters who love to be a part of the app creation.
2. User feedback - Related to the above point. Perhaps users will provide constructive feedback not only about the app but also about the code quality. This best suits a bootstrapped setup.
3. Personal glory - I can tell the whole world - hey this is how I wrote this app. ( That could also backfire very badly as my code quality is nothing stellar ).
The possible downsides:
1. Someone might copy - I couldn't convince myself that someone will really copy this app and make a boatload of money.
2. Patentable technology/licensing revenue - In all honesty, I believe that a patent driven ecosystem is terrible for software as such. I can understand patent protection for pharmaceuticals or even perhaps chip making, industries that have to spend a lot of money to build a product. That's not the case in software and certainly not the case with TripLaud app.  So after some considerable thought, I made my source public on github

The beta is out. This wouldn't have been quite possible without the help of Riju, Gaurav and many others who gave me the required moral support, and of course the guys  at StackOverflow for answering all my stupid questions. So a big thank you to all of you. I've updated our website as well. Hope you guys will find this app useful.