Yeah it sounds like he's just terminally online. The whole idea here did not resonate with me at all. If I have serious work to do I isolate myself and do it until it's done or I'm out of steam.
If the day "poisons" me that means I should have been more disciplined - the correct answer to consuming news media, for instance, is always to consume less of it. If someone is consistently poisoning my day the answer is to reduce contact with them.
That’s what he says, though, at least in the context of Antonoff. He gets to the studio and gets to work without being sidetracked or letting other things sidetrack him. The “poison” is just the distractions to avoid.
The part about accepting when your focus is shot is good, while I'm not convinced it's gone for the entire day, you can definitely get stuck outside of your "flow state" for a couple hours and you may just have to go do other stuff when it happens.
I think what triggered me was this line - "no early morning notifications - no sudden alert about Putin’s latest military actions."
Unless you're a journalist covering the Ukraine war, you really shouldn't have real time notifications informing you about Putin's military actions, and if you do, that's productivity problem #1.
I'm just saying this guy paints a picture of a constantly interrupted life and from my experience the first line of defense is to reduce the interruptions, with measures that are much more aggressive than the average modern person's.