A bias that I have come to notice in myself is the immediacy bias. This is bias towards reacting immediately to a stimulus, without consideration for the context or big picture.

A software example is the bug report. This may come in a raw form, like a new error in Sentry, or a Slack message from an internal user, or as a customer review on the App Store. I notice that I am drawn towards investigating and fixing such issues immediately. Seemingly noble (who doesn't want to be the one who fixed a critical bug quickly?), this has significant drawbacks: certainly context switching away from active work, but even more importantly the opportunity cost.

Triaging is the process of assigning severity to the bug, for which there are predefined standard response procedures. This is a remedy for the immediacy bias. It provides a helpful framework in a stressful situation and clearly specifies when immediacy is necessary and when it is not.

In my experience, only mission critical bugs require an immediate response. This should be laid out in the standard operating procedures, for the assistance of the engineer, but also to build it into the company wide culture. If a bug is reported publicly, and management panics and demands action, that reinforces a bad dynamic within the company.

(Similarly, Kevin Mitnick in The Art of Deception explains that management must abide by the same security protocols as everyone else, i.e. leading from above. I just finished the book - excellent and enjoyable read.)

Without triaging, or with bad triaging practices (i.e. there's pressure to investigate and fix bugs quickly), engineers are taught to independently make decisions in-the-moment, with the full brunt of the immediacy bias at play. It's not easy to ignore a customer's complaint, or a new Sentry error, but sometimes it's necessary.

As for the costs, context switching from active work leaves both jobs poorly distributed in the mind's resource: attention. There's a cost to entering and exiting focus. On top of this, the pressure of the immediacy bias will leave the bug front and center in the mind until it's resolved, but that typically takes hours, if not days: investigation, fix, deploy, follow up, and urgent communications.

The opportunity cost ties into context switching, as there will be decreased performance until the bug is resolved. But at a higher level the time spent on the bug could have been put productively to use in one's existing work. Investing blocks of time to focus on a project is critical for efficient success. In Paul Graham's essay on the Maker and Manager Schedules, he explains that for the Maker (i.e. the programmer), large chunks of time must be set aside for creative work.

While the above focuses on bugs, the immediacy bias applies to all types of decisions.

Another example that I find pressing is (push) notifications. Slack messages, emails, my phone, etc., all demand immediate response, and at significant cost. The tools developed to combat this shed light on how we should structure our responses in other instances.

One tool is "Do Not Disturb" mode, which I have enabled at work. This prevents notifications from flashing and making sound in order to steal my attention.

Another example is notification settings, i.e. specifying which applications are allowed to send which kinds of messages. The filtering is a great feature on Android, but unfortunately I've noticed that some application developers do not label the notification types, meaning it's all or nothing: either you accept the spammy marketing notifications or you don't get the useful notifications.

I recently reviewed my notification settings with a critical eye. One notable example is email: why do I need to have personal email notifications? I can't think of the last time that a notification improved my life over checking my email in the morning and evening.

This can paradoxically lead to greater attention lost if not approached thoughtfully. For example, while I enable "Do Not Disturb" at work, I now spend time frequently checking my email, whenever I see the tab notification badge. The same is true for Slack, except globally on my monitor with the icon in the menu bar.

That aside, the efficacy of these techniques demonstrates that immediate response is rarely warranted. When making decisions in life, one should not feel compelled to immediate action: take the time you need to calmly think through the matter at hand, taking into account the context.

I am beginning to appreciate just how precious is my attention. The immediacy bias is an important enemy to understand. It's critical to develop defensive techniques to safeguard one's attention.