FlowTime
The Reality in SOCs: A Flood of Alerts and On-Call Duty
Information security analysts monitor the continuous stream of events in a 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) and perform correlation analysis so they do not miss potential threats. New attacks emerge daily, and a large volume of alerts—many of them false positives—constantly appears. In many SOCs, alarms sound every few minutes. Like car alarms that go off when a breeze shakes them, most are harmless yet still require verification. Nighttime and weekend on-call duties disrupt sleep and daily rhythms, and emergency responses wedged between analysis tasks make it easy for concentration to snap. Once alert fatigue sets in, sensitivity to truly important alerts dulls, increasing the likelihood of missing dangerous attacks. The pressure of this work has also been cited as a reason the average tenure of SOC analysts is less than two years.
Direction of the Solution Approach
A focus timer with flexible breaks and a fixed task display—“FlowTime”—is worth attention here. FlowTime is not a rigid timer that forces a stop every 25 minutes. Instead, for a 90–120‑minute focus block it automatically proposes a break equal to 20% of the work time, naturally aligning the rhythm of focus and recovery. Because starting, pausing, and moving to the next task can all be done with a single button, you avoid extra operations that chip away at attention. In this article, we clarify why information security analysts need a flow state, how large the cost of interruptions really is, and then explain FlowTime’s mechanisms and adoption benefits as a solution.
Why Information Security Analysts Need a “Flow State”
Division of Roles and the Essence of Analysis: L1/L2/L3 Collaboration
SOC analysts continuously monitor network traffic and log files to detect anomalous behavior and identify potential attacks or vulnerabilities. Level 1 receives alerts in real time, escalates them, and adds context. Level 2 investigates root causes and conducts analysis, while Level 3 is responsible for threat hunting against unknown adversaries. These duties include log correlation, evidence collection, and vulnerability assessment—combining hundreds of lines of event data into a single coherent story. Beyond technical skill, this work places heavy demands on working memory as hypotheses are tested while holding vast information in mind, requiring uninterrupted, continuous thinking.
What Is the Flow State: Immersion Drives High Productivity
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described the “flow state” as a condition where action and awareness merge and one becomes so immersed that the sense of time fades. Entering this state boosts creativity and concentration, enabling deep engagement with complex problems.
Anticipatory Anxiety and Continuous Tension: The Necessity of Securing Flow
In information security, the possibility of attack is constant, and psychological tension rarely abates. Zero-day vulnerabilities and ransomware emerge daily, and analysts—always preparing the next move—often find their mental breathing space eroded. Even during quiet periods, anticipatory anxiety—“an alarm could go off any moment”—lingers. To avoid missing causal signals in logs or early indicators of attack under such mental load, analysts must intentionally secure time for deep immersion and minimize obstacles to continuous thought.
The Cost of Interruptions
An Average 23 Minutes and 15 Seconds to Regain Momentum
In knowledge work, once the information held in primary memory is interrupted, studies report it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to return to the previous tempo.
The Reality of Task Switching: 3:05 / 40 Seconds / 74 Times
Researchers who observed employees across multiple companies at second-level granularity found that people switch tasks every 3 minutes and 5 seconds on average. Data from 2016 also reported a median screen-attention span of about 40 seconds. Some individuals check email 74 times a day—self-imposed interruptions are common. Even if each switch only takes seconds, the cumulative effect works out to about 25 and a half minutes of lost focus per interruption, repeatedly derailing deep thinking.
SOC-Specific Alert Fatigue: 99% Harmless Yet Must Be Checked
This problem is even more severe in SOC environments. Many centers handle hundreds to thousands of alerts per day, including false positives; over 99% may ultimately prove harmless, yet still require verification. Alarms sounding every few minutes drain attention, and repeatedly handling similar alerts increases the risk of overlooking truly important warnings. “Alert fatigue” refers to the phenomenon where frequent exposure to alarms desensitizes analysts, leading to slower reactions and missed critical alerts. Low-quality indicators and misconfigured detection rules are often major contributors. Reducing interruption costs is therefore not merely a productivity issue—it is essential to maintaining the quality of incident response.
Impact on Efficiency and Quality
Rising Cognitive Load: Rebuilding the Train of Thought
When interruptions are frequent, every return to the task forces a meta-step: “Where did I leave off in the analysis?”—increasing cognitive load. Researchers point out that switching context every ten and a half minutes makes deep thinking impossible. After an interruption, people must rebuild their “train of thought,” which imposes additional mental overhead. In a high reboot-cost environment like this, the ability to read log correlations is dulled and the risk of missing early signs of attack rises.
Misses Caused by Alert Fatigue
Alert fatigue has been linked to a tendency to ignore low-priority alerts, which in turn delays response times and increases the likelihood of missing major incidents.
The High-Risk, Low-Recognition Paradox and Turnover
Information security work also faces the paradox of being “high risk, low recognition.” When analysts block malicious emails or contain malware, successes are rarely visible, yet a single miss draws scrutiny and responsibility. The psychological burden is heavy. Long shifts, night work, and the grind of processing vast numbers of alerts can lead to burnout. In many SOCs—where demand is surging but talent remains scarce—chronic understaffing and long hours overlap, and some reports suggest the average analyst tenure is under two years. To maintain efficiency and quality, reducing interruptions and fatigue is indispensable.
Solution: Use FlowTime to Reduce Interruption Costs Upfront
Mechanism: Measure → 20% Break → Visualization Loop
FlowTime is a flexible focus timer designed to address these challenges. It uses a count‑up timer to measure work time, then automatically calculates a break equal to 20% of that duration when the session ends. It includes a drag‑and‑drop task list, records sessions, and visualizes work/rest history on a statistics dashboard.
Technical Foundation: PWA, Local Storage, and Sync
FlowTime supports the BroadcastChannel API for cross‑tab/browser state sync, provides PWA capabilities for offline use, and stores data locally. Practical features include sound notifications, light/dark themes, localization in English and Japanese, and CSV/JSON data export (with ongoing expansion). No login is required—just start using it, with no complex setup.
Operational Design: Separation of Analysis Blocks and Monitoring Windows
When security analysts adopt FlowTime, effectiveness improves by deliberately separating analysis blocks from monitoring windows. For example, secure 90–120‑minute analysis blocks in the morning and afternoon, and mute SIEM and chat notifications during those periods. After each work block, FlowTime automatically proposes a 20% break; following about 90 minutes of focus, that yields an 18‑minute recovery window, during which you can check only high‑priority alerts.
UI Design: Fixed Task Display and One‑Button Operation
FlowTime’s “Start → Next” button keeps a single task fixed on screen so you never hesitate about what to do next. After a break, you can immediately resume analysis. The statistics dashboard visualizes patterns of focus and interruption by day, week, and month, helping you identify time slots prone to fragmentation and improve the operational flow.
Before/After: Changes Before and After Adoption
Before: A Typical Day Pre-Deployment
In SOCs before introducing FlowTime, alerts and messages surged in roughly every three minutes, and a single interruption translated into more than 23 minutes of lost focus. Some checked email as many as 74 times a day, and each check required reconstructing the log context—making it difficult to secure sustained analysis time. Even if over 99% of alerts were harmless, you still had to handle them, with hours per day ultimately consumed by notification handling.
After: An Example Operating Model and Its Effects
With FlowTime, simply scheduling two 90‑minute focus blocks and 18‑minute breaks for each yields 180 minutes of deep analysis time per day. If unnecessary notifications are blocked and, say, four interruptions per session are prevented, the math suggests saving about 93 minutes of lost concentration per session (23:15 × 4). Checking only high‑priority alerts during breaks avoids delayed response. The fixed task display eliminates time lost to “What should I do next?” and lets you move straight into the next analysis. As a result, analysis lead times shrink, time spent on false positives decreases, and you can concentrate on the most significant threats. Because the statistics dashboard visualizes task‑switching frequency, you can also quantify improvements—useful for organizational accountability.
Assurances (Security, Pricing, Device Requirements)
Data Handling and Offline Operation
FlowTime is designed so security professionals can use it with confidence. As a PWA that runs in the browser, it works without an internet connection, and session/task data are stored in the device’s local storage. This avoids the risk of data being sent outside the organization and supports GDPR‑compliant privacy protection. There is no sign‑in or account registration—start using it without handing over personal information. FlowTime supports both English and Japanese and behaves consistently across major desktop and mobile browsers.
Pricing and Adoption Barriers
Adoption costs are low. The core features—unlimited timer tracking, task management, 20% flexible breaks, statistics dashboard, and one‑button operation—are available for free. Even when a Pro plan launches, pricing is expected to be only a few dollars per month. CSV/JSON export capabilities are also expanding, enabling analytics for individuals and organizations. These factors make it easy to roll out even in security‑sensitive environments, and device requirements are as simple as “a browser.”
Conclusion
Information security analysts must conduct deep analysis amid a torrent of alerts and continuous monitoring. Each interruption costs, on average, over 23 minutes of focus. In 24/7 operations where thousands of false positives are common, alert fatigue easily develops and the risk of missing critical alerts rises. To maintain high‑quality analysis under these conditions, it is essential to intentionally secure time for flow and build mechanisms that suppress interruption costs.
FlowTime offers a flexible rhythm—90–120‑minute focus blocks with breaks equal to 20% of the work time—plus a fixed task display and one‑button operation that allows seamless progression. Its offline operation and local storage alleviate concerns about data leakage, and the free availability is a major advantage. By separating analysis blocks from monitoring windows and checking only high‑priority alerts during breaks, you can mitigate alert fatigue while preserving deep focus. Rather than treating alerts as an assembly line, consider adopting FlowTime as a system that protects time for genuine threat analysis.