A SAENT at work

In our world of constant stimulation and speed, distraction is a constant temptation.

Piers Steel, Distinguished Research Chair in Advanced Business Leadership with CCAL, has done extensive research on procrastination and its remedies. If you are having a tough time meeting targets, “… maybe it’s your distractions, not your goals, which are the problem. The way forward is to make the distractions harder to get to, less obvious,” says Steel.

SAENT (pronounced ‘saint’) is a button linked to a desktop app that helps you block distractions, improve your focus and find a healthier work-life balance. It does this by prompting its user to set “focus sessions.”

Upon launching the session, the app will silence digital distractions, block websites and apps labelled unproductive by the user, and ward off notifications. SAENT is not only about focus and work, it’s also about work-life balance and will prompt breaks for resting and recharging. You become the better version of you.

SAENT software is available free of charge to all Haskayne students in exchange for the research Steel and his team are doing to trace how it affects work habits.

Roberta Rodamilans, a fourth year Marketing student, is grateful to SAENT for improving her work habits. She used it for one semester and is still finding its impact helpful.

“I now use a timer with 25 minute ‘focus sessions’ whenever I study, which makes me feel like time is going by faster. This simple tactic also gives me a better sense of accomplishment as I get a lot more done during those 25 minute sessions,” Rodamilans explains.

SAENT also allowed Rodamilans to discover how much time she was losing in distractions by tracking each minute she spent on unproductive websites.  This was an effective incentive to hold herself accountable for her time.

If you would like to regain focus, improve your time-management and practice mindful productivity, SAENT might be for you. If you are a Haskayne student, you can request to participate in the research study and have free access to the software. Just email your request to leadership@haskayne.ucalgary.ca with “SAENT” in the subject heading.