Interruption Impact Assessment

Interruption Impact Assessment

The Interruption Impact Assessment system is a core component of the Flow Protection Framework, responsible for evaluating the potential disruption of interruptions to flow states and making intelligent decisions about notification prioritization.

Impact Factors

Interruption impact is calculated based on multiple factors:

Flow State Depth

• Impact Scale: Higher flow states (61-100) experience greater negative impact from interruptions
• Recovery Cost: Deeper flow states require more time to reestablish after interruption
• Context Preservation: Higher flow states have more complex context to maintain

Interruption Type

| Type | Description | Relative Impact | |——|————-|—————–| | System | OS-level notifications | Medium-High | | Application | App-specific notifications | Medium | | Communication | Messages, emails, calls | High | | Environmental | Physical interruptions | Variable | | Self-initiated | Voluntary context switching | Low-Medium |

Timing Factors

• Duration: Length of uninterrupted flow prior to interruption
• Sequence: Position within an established workflow
• Momentum: Rate of progress immediately preceding interruption
• Recovery History: Previous pattern of recovery from similar interruptions

Context Factors

• Task Complexity: More complex tasks suffer greater impact
• Deadline Proximity: Urgency of current task
• Cognitive Load: Current mental resource utilization
• Dependency Chain: Whether other tasks depend on current progress

Impact Calculation

The impact score (1-10) is calculated using a weighted algorithm:

Impact = (FlowStateWeight × FlowScore) + 
         (InterruptionTypeWeight × TypeImpact) +
         (TimingWeight × TimingFactor) +
         (ContextWeight × ContextFactor)

Where weights are calibrated based on empirical data from flow sessions.

Recovery Time Estimation

Recovery time is estimated based on:

1. Flow Depth: Deeper states (81-100) typically require 10-25 minutes for recovery
2. Interruption Duration: Longer interruptions correlate with longer recovery
3. Task Complexity: More complex tasks require longer reorientation
4. Historical Patterns: Individual recovery patterns learned over time

Notification Prioritization

Based on impact assessment, notifications are handled according to these principles:

Priority Levels

1. Urgent (9-10): Immediate delivery regardless of flow state
2. Important (7-8): Delivery during natural breaks in deep flow
3. Standard (4-6): Batched delivery at predetermined intervals
4. Low (1-3): Held until flow state concludes

Delivery Mechanisms

• Immediate: Direct notification with sound and visual
• Ambient: Subtle visual indicator without sound
• Batched: Grouped notifications delivered at intervals
• Deferred: Held for later delivery at optimal moment
• Suppressed: Blocked entirely during critical flow periods

Current Implementation

The current implementation uses a simplified manual approach:

• Flow session documentation includes interruption tracking
• Manual assessment of impact on 1-10 scale
• Recording of recovery time after interruptions
• Analysis of patterns across sessions

Future Development

Planned enhancements include:

• ML-driven impact prediction based on personal patterns
• Real-time notification management system
• Adaptive learning from interruption responses
• Integration with OS-level notification systems
• Context preservation mechanisms for unavoidable interruptions

Meta-Implementation Insight

By documenting our own interruptions during FloShake development, we’re creating a dataset that will inform the automated impact assessment system, demonstrating how FloShake’s meta-implementation approach turns development itself into training data for the system.