In this interview, Jason Fried uses a sleep analogy to explain the importance of having uninterrupted time to get work done.

“Working and sleeping are the same. If you interrupted somebody all night long, would you say they got a good night’s sleep? No. If you interrupt people all day long, how can you say they got a good day’s work?”

High school students, it’s even more important for you to embrace this concept for one simple reason—you have fewer hours per week to get work done than most working adults do.

Many students have full-time workloads without full-time hours to complete them. You likely spend six hours a day at school. Many students then have after-school activities like sports, jobs, or volunteer work. By the time you finally sit down at home to do your homework and study, you only have a few hours to get things done before you physically can’t stay up any later. The constant interruptions of texts, emails, chats, etc. add up. Something has to give—either the quality of your work will suffer, or you’ll have to stay up even later and sleep less (which in turn affects the quality of your work).

Are those texts from your friend really worth the sacrifice?

Turn the notifications off–all of them. Then put your head down and do your work in the precious few uninterrupted hours of the day that you have.

Try it for one week. Try it even for one day. I think you’ll find that the rewards far outweigh the loss of missed messages.