The Tool

At the end of my last post about Focus, I wrote this:

The only way I can think of to solve this, short of hiring an assistant, is to build something. I've had an idea around this for a long time. It's way past time for me to build it.

Well, this week I went and built it. I built the Minimum Viable Product version of a tool to help solve this. For now, it's just for me. If it works for me, I might turn it into a little service so others can use it too.

If you want to better understand the problem I think this will help solve, check out my last post on Focus. If you want to skip right to the solution, here is what the tool does.

Sum of it's parts...

• It provides a web form that I can give to people who might need to reach me urgently.
• When a message is sent through that form, it triggers a very easy validation process to make sure the message is legit.
• Once the sender completes the validation process, the system sends me a txt from a predictable number, which I've added to my iPhone favorites.

That's it. No AI. No ML. No Big Data. No <insert other buzz words here>.

The sender fills out a form and I get a txt that bypasses my otherwise silenced notifications..

Value

On the surface, that doesn't seem that interesting. However, here's the real value.

• Once people have this, they have a way to reach me in the event of something that is actually urgent, even while I have notifications otherwise silenced.
• This will enable me to turn notifications off without fear of missing out on something critical.

At least in my mind, that's valuable. It will allow me to focus more often and for longer periods of time than I have below.

Now, I need to actually use it

I'm confident in the technical mechanics. The tool will work and be highly reliable. I've built it on highly reliable platforms. I'm sure I'll write more about that soon.

Here is the tricky part. I need to distribute this to people who might need to reach me urgently - in my case clients. I need to see if they will actually use it.

As with many solutions to problems, the actual technical solutions are only one part of the problem. The people problems are much harder.

Here is how I plan to roll this out.

People generally reach out with urgent issues via phone calls, txt messages, Teams messages and emails. Before I do focused work this next week, I'm going to need to configure these methods to send some sort of auto reply messages. This way, when people default to their normal modes of reaching out, they will be notified of the new way to reach out in case of something urgent.

• Update my voicemail greeting with directions.
• Enable email auto replies with directions.
• Enable txt auto replies with directions.
• Enable Teams auto replies with directions.

What will success look like?

I think I'll be able to measure success in two ways.

1) If I do a focused work session and no one has an urgent issue while my notifications are off, that will be a win. I will have avoided all of the little disruptions, and me having notifications off will have had no negative impact on anyone.

2) If I do a focused work session with notifications off, and a client has an urgent issue and they use this system to interrupt me. This would be a big win. This would build my confidence that this tool solves this problem in a way that works - not only for me but also for others. My goal is to respond within one minute (seriously) to anyone who reaches out to me with a legitimate urgent issue who uses this tool.

What would failure look like?

Success is fun to think about. Failure is less fun to think about, but perhaps it's more important. I think this has a single failure scenario that I can think of.

1) A client has an urgent issue. They forget about the email I sent describing this. They get my email / txt / voicemail / Teams reminders when they reach out the old way. For whatever reason they can't navigate this new process. That would be a failure. I hope it does not happen. If it does, I'll work super hard to better understand why. I think this is simple enough that this is unlikely. However, it's always possible I might be wrong.

How long will it take to tell?

I think some success or failure signals should show up pretty quickly. However, if I'm able to use this the way I want, I think I'll know for sure by the end of the month (21 days from today).

If it works, what does this unlock?

For me personally, if this works, I think it will enable me to spend significantly more time doing focused deep work.

• I have some projects that I want to work on that will greatly benefit from this.
• I enjoy focused deep work. I find trying to do this sort of work while dealing with interruptions frustrating. Avoiding that frustration would be super nice.

As a reminder, if you want to get emails when I post a new blog, you can  subscribe.

-David