4 Strategies And 1 Book To Combat Chronic Distraction And Bring Your Mind Back Into Focus

You might be surprised to learn the book isn’t about productivity.

I’ve always had jobs that require high levels of multitasking. I’ve been a waitress, professional cook, and currently, I run a home daycare. All of which require master levels of mental juggling.

I don’t know if my job choices created my split-brain (aka monkey mind) or if I gravitated to professions that played to this strength. But during the lockdown, quietly sequestered in my home trying to achieve some more single-minded tasks, I’ve discovered that I am very easily distracted.

“If you don’t concentrate on what you are doing then the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson

During sheltering in place, I’ve been writing and taking courses, but it seems that years of constant task-juggling have taken a toll on my ability to concentrate. I’ve found it difficult to do anything without lapsing into distraction over and over.

Does this ring a bell for you?

The only thing I seem to be able to do to single-mindedly is to write. For everything else, I’m like a kid in a pet store. Everything around me is endlessly fascinating, ceaselessly calling for my attention.

Does this happen to you?

You find yourself reading whole pages, then realizing that you have no clue what they said because a few words in, you go off thinking about something else.

Do you read the same pages and paragraphs tens of times before they finally sink in?

The sheer number of distractions out there make split-brain functioning hard to avoid even if it’s not an inherent problem. Concentration inhibiting environments are everywhere, especially in our digital universe.

Luckily the brain is adaptable and malleable and that gives me hope. The science of neuroplasticity says we can shape new habits to forge new neural pathways. If someone with a traumatic brain injury can have a seemingly miraculous recovery, surely I can retrain my monkey-brain.

My challenge during the lockdown has been to find ways to learn to reign in my wandering mind and find solutions that work.

It’s in that the spirit of helpfulness that I’m listing the more annoying qualities of my distracted personality and what I’ve done to temper them. Have a look at these problems, and if you can relate, you might want to read what I’ve done to get myself under control.

Here’s a list of the typical ways I find my mind wandering and what I do to manage it:

Wandering mind when reading: You’re reading a book, and suddenly you realize you haven’t retained a thing. You’re miles away thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner or getting the idea for a new project.

It’s easy to have other thoughts creep in when you’re reading, especially if you’re studying something dry or conversely if you’re reading something that gives you lots of inspiration.

Even though I love self-help books, I find them distracting because they give me ideas.

What I do: I like to have a way to take notes close at hand, either electronically or with good old fashioned paper.

I write down my thoughts and inspirations as they come so I can go back to them later. Once I write something down can let it go.

If I don’t write down these thoughts, my mind wants to hang onto them, so I don’t forget. They keep coming back over and over. After I write something down, my brain knows I’ve noted and secured it so I can get back to what I was doing.

Wandering mind when watching courses or demos: Does this ever happen when you’re watching videos for online courses? I notice this especially problematic when it’s a subject matter I’m not familiar with, something I don’t understand or find tedious. What I do: In this case, it’s easy, I just go back over it as many times as necessary until the message sinks in. I know it sounds too simple, but this is what works for me.

Sometimes I make written notes. The act of having to get the thought from my brain to the paper solidifies and reinforces the idea.

The important thing with this is not to get mad or frustrated with yourself. Wasting time and energy on berating yourself will draw you from your goal, which is to finish the video and learn whatever it is you’re trying to learn. If you just patiently reel yourself in whenever you go mentally wandering off and rewind to where you need to go back to as many times as necessary with the attitude of patience and understanding, your mind will settle down faster and start to absorb.

Look at it this way. If you were trying to teach someone else who had a difficult time focusing, you wouldn’t get mad at them or pressure them. You would probably be kind and compassionate. The more generous you are to yourself, the more relaxed and product you’ll be

So give yourself a break, rewind, and regroup as often as necessary and work on getting better at catching yourself when you lose focus. Look at it as a challenge. You are breaking old habits and creating new ones at the same time, and that’s not easy.

Wandering mind in conversations: Many of us have this habit. We aren’t good listeners. We listen to someone else talk, but we’re just waiting for our turn.

There are many reasons why people develop this habit but the bottom line is it makes us distracted listeners.

What you can do about it: First, monitor yourself.

When you’re talking to someone, do you zone out halfway through a conversation? Do you get thoughts that pop into your head that you feel you have to blurt out before the other person finishes? Do you interrupt people often? If you’re a distracted listener, you may have these habits and not even be aware of them.

If you find that this applies to you, you can work on learning the skill of active listening.

Some of the principles of active listening are patient listening and reflecting back what the other person says. Even if you only work on those two elements, you will automatically become a less distracted listener.

Another thing that can help is to simply tell yourself that it’s okay if one of your thoughts slip by articulated.

Instead of feeling like you have to say everything in your head, just let it go. Let it go and reel yourself back into listening to what the other person is saying.

Wandering mind in quiet times: Does this ever happen to you? You’re having a nice quiet, peaceful moment, and suddenly your mind is full of random thoughts? Worries, obsessions, cravings, weird feelings, memories of embarrassing things that happened to you ten years ago, something stupid you said last week that suddenly embarrasses you? It’s amazing how easily our subconscious can swoop in and ruin a lovely moment.

I had an especially difficult time with this when I’d wake up in the middle of the night awash in existential dread.

I hadn’t realized how much of a problem I had with this until I started reading “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks.

It was recommended to me by a friend bout two years ago and sat on a shelf until about a month ago when I read a challenge here on Medium by Michelle Thill. She wrote an article about how she finally read a book she bought in 2007 because she finally felt ready for it.

It’s an easy read with a lot of useful insights about how we limit our happiness. He talks about how we put an “upper limit” on our joy, and one way we do that is with chronic worrying or criticizing.

The book deals with how to work to free yourself from putting that “upper limit” on your happiness to achieve more in life and have better relationships.

It focuses on his brand of mindfulness — learning to acknowledge when you’re sabotaging your happiness and then strategies to move forward.

This book gave me some significant epiphanies, one being that the things that cause a lot of my distractions are these obsessive thoughts that sabotage my happiness.

One good way to lessen those distractions is to acknowledge them for what they are and let them go.

Now, in moments of existential dread, my mantra is “accept and release.” I accept there is nothing I can do about anything at that moment, so I release the thoughts.

We live in a world rife with distractions, but what makes us susceptible to them comes from within. By working with the natural tendencies of our split-brain personalities to reign ourselves in and retrain our bad habits, we can protect ourselves from incessant multitasking and the distraction it encourages.

A wandering mind can be annoying and distracting. It can make you think that you will never achieve what you set out to do. But that wandering mind can be worked and tamed like anything else. The brain is adaptable and malleable, so why not use that to your advantage and get your distractions under control so you can do what you set out to do and be everything you can be!

The good news is that we have choices. We can choose to recognize our shortfalls, habits, and the ways we sabotage ourselves so we can take control of them and work to build better habits.

Thanks so much for reading!

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