This Monday after finishing her morning coffee, Mia Metcalfe was shocked to suddenly discover that she’d been consistently working at her computer for one full hour, with no breaks. Metcalfe didn’t know how to process the fact that she had sat there working in one document, consistently making progress for a full 60 minutes.
Somehow she did this without checking email, social media, group texts or even going to the bathroom.
“Usually if I find myself working for more than 20 minutes straight, I’ll go get up and get some water or a snack or something,” Metcalfe explains. “That kind of focus is just too much to bear. I honestly don’t even know how this happened.”
Experts say this kind of unbroken work cycle sometimes occurs when people accidentally leave on the “do not disturb” function on their phone, mute their alerts, or install productivity extensions on their browsers that restrict them from time-wasting sites. But perplexingly, Metcalfe had done none of these things.
“I just don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head. “I wasn’t even on deadline or anything.”
Metcalfe’s coworkers were astounded when they heard the news.
“She came over to me, like ‘You won’t believe what just happened,’” says Lisa Anderson, whose office is two doors down. “We spent nearly a half an hour wondering how it happened. I hope she can do this with some of my work.”
Heading back to work, Metcalfe wondered if she should reward herself by heading home early for the day.
“But then I ended up texting my friends about this and we went down a rabbit hole making fun of a former classmate’s Instagram and by then it was already after six.”
