Summary - Thesis Process

Obtract is a system designed to track and reduce distraction for small teams of knowledge workers.

It includes an application that runs on each worker’s Mac that monitors activities and allows workers to identify their own distractions. Behind the scenes, Obtract collects data to automatically determine the most common distractions. As workers become more distracted, Obtract creates increasingly complex obstacles to make distracting activities harder to access. Workers can share activities among teams so they can stay motivated and focused together.

Trends. Keep track of your distraction level over the course of your day. Compare to your teammates. Post Milestones to mark your accomplishments.

Activities. See where the bulk of your time is going. Share your most frequent activities with your teammates.

Intervention. When you get too distracted, a maze intervention appears to slow you down and help you get back to work. Solve the maze to allow yourself more distracted time.

Request Help. As you get more distracted, the maze gets more complex. Ask a teammate for help if you can't solve it yourself, for 15 more minutes of distraction time.

Monitors. A monitor window sits on the side of your screen and pops out to notify you that you're distracting yourself.

Hides. When you're productive, it stays out of the way, so you can focus on your work.

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