What are shifts?

A shift occurs when you switch from working on an activity in one category (Focus Work, Other Work, Personal Activities) to working in another category. An example of this is switching from a Focus Work activity to a communication activity such as Slack. Frequent shifting impacts your ability to concentrate and prevents you from getting into the "flow" of Focus Work.

Examples of Shifts

Here are some examples of shifts:

A Distraction shift occurs when you switch from work (Focus Work or Other Work) to a Personal Activity.

A Communication shift is when you switch from work (Focus Work or Other Work) to Communication.

A switch in work activities from Focus Work to Other Work or vice versa is also counted as a shift.

PLEASE NOTE: Shifts are not counted within the same category: for example, if you shift from one Distraction to another Distraction, or one Communication to another Communication.

What's counted as a shift?

A switch in activities is logged as a shift when—within a 5 minute window—your top activity meets the above conditions. Where you shifted (i.e. Distraction, Communication, Focus Work, or Other Work) is decided by the amount of time you spent on that activity. Shifts are calculated in 5-minute increments. Whichever category you spend the most time in is reported as the category for each 5-minute increment.

Here are some examples for clarity:

At 11:00 you were working in Photoshop for 2 minutes and Terminal for 3 minutes. Both are Focus Work for you, so this timespan is Focus Work.
At 11:05 you spend 3 minutes on Photoshop, 1 minute on Terminal, and 30 seconds on Twitter. The majority of this timespan is Focus Work, so no shift is reported.
At 11:10 you spend 4 minutes on Twitter and 1 on Photoshop. Personal Activities are now the majority of the 5-minute timespan, so this is a Distraction Shift.