Distractions: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live Without Them
We can’t eliminate distractions entirely. But we can decide which ones we’ll allow.
Focus time. Deep work. Deliberate practice. Whatever you call it, concentration ultimately powers our best work. Limiting distractions is critical.
Yet the modern world has become a sea of distractions. Email, social media, 24/7 news cycles. Everywhere you look, there’s something else demanding your attention.
And it seems to be taking its toll. We multitask too much. Our attention spans are decreasing. We just can’t seem to concentrate amid all these distractions.
In response, we’ve looked for relief in essentialism and minimalism. And advice about focus has mushroomed. Search “how to reduce distractions” and you’ll get millions of results.
But no one can work laser-focused all the time. You might even say that distraction is our natural state.
So rather than asking how to reduce distractions, perhaps there’s a different question to ask:
What distractions should we allow?
Why Can’t We Just Focus?
To understand why we’re constantly battling our minds when it comes to intense concentration, we first have to understand how we think.
As detailed in Barbara Oakley and Terrance Sejnowski’s MOOC, Learning How To Learn, we have two modes of thinking: focused and diffuse mode. In focused mode, our attention is narrowly directed. We’re concentrating on one specific task. Most of the time, when we refer to “work,” we’re talking about tasks that involve the focused mode of thinking.
Diffuse mode, on the other hand, is a “free-form” mode of thought. Since we’re not concentrating on anything in particular, most compare diffuse mode to day-dreaming. But our brains are still working. In diffuse mode, our brains make connections between concepts and consolidate new information.
Diffuse mode is responsible for the majority of “A-ha” moments in problem-solving. If you’ve ever wondered why you get your best ideas in the shower, you can thank your brain’s diffuse thinking.
But how do these two modes of thought impact the nature of distraction? The answer comes when we look at distraction’s polar opposite: focus.
Modes of Thinking and Focus
In Deep Work, Cal Newport cites a four hour limit on deep work — derived from K. Anders Ericsson’s studies on deliberate practice. Even “focus experts” are only able to sustain about four hours of focused work a day. And studies on willpower indicate it is an exhaustible resource.
Add all these factors together and you have a species that’s great at getting distracted and almost incapable of staying in focused mode.
So our concentration is naturally limited. We may even spend more of our day distracted than we spend focused. We have to accept that distractions are a natural part of how the human mind works.
Fortunately, while we might not be able to eliminate our mind’s tendency to wander, we can direct it more productively.
Distractions: The Productive vs. the Non-Productive
With the rise of the hustle culture, society has become prone to tossing any activity that isn’t “proper work” into the category of “distractions.” Even basic biological necessities like appropriate nutrition and adequate amounts of sleep are treated as luxuries.
In the meantime, the “always-on” work culture creates mountains of shallow, distracted work (like email) that demands an instant response but provides little benefit in return.
Thus, the key to truly focusing comes to separating non-productive distractions from productive distractions.
Non-productive distractions are usually obvious. Email, social media, obsessive news reading, and aimless web surfing are all good examples. Think of these as any distractions that don’t provide true mental relief.
Productive distractions, on the other hand, actually help boost your focused time. They give your brain a break. These distractions allow our minds time to work in the diffuse mode of thought and make new connections. Some examples include:
- Taking a walk
- Disconnecting from tech
- Leisure reading
- Napping (Seriously — it is a productivity booster)
- Getting lost in thought
Any activity that will clear your mind so you can return to focusing at your full potential is fair game.
Non-productive distractions do have their place (life would be monotonous without them), but they should not be used as breaks between focus time. Instead, utilize productive distractions to ensure you’re getting the most out of the time you spend focused.
Beware of Falsely-Productive Distractions
Now, a word of caution about false-productivity:
Not everything that is productive is a productive distraction. We have to learn to avoid the tasks that might seem like productive distractions but aren’t.
The litmus test is simple: is the distraction necessary to your focus right now?
Writers often joke about cleaning the house from top to bottom to avoid writing or editing. This is a fantastic example of procrastination masquerading as a productive distraction.
But, just because a task is falsely productive in one scenario does not mean it is in all scenarios. Cleaning the house from top to bottom might be procrastination. Yet, if the clutter on your desk is affecting your focus, cleaning your workspace is actually a productive distraction.
Remember, always ask: will this help me focus if I do it right now?
How to Distraction More Productively
So knowing we should use productive distractions is one thing. How to utilize them in the best way possible is quite another.
The common thread here lies in planning. The average person takes 22 minutes to refocus on a task after an interruption. Researchers call this a result of attention residue. It means even if you’re actively working on a task, part of your mind is still on the last thing you dealt with. The more multitasking you do, the more this effect is going to compound.
To minimize that residue, it’s important to plan out focused time in advance on a macro level. Cal Newport uses time blocking. Paul Graham’s Maker vs. Manager schedules might also work for some. Really, any form of daily or weekly planning is an immense help in this area.
Once you’ve planned your focused time, executing on a smaller scale is the next tactic to tackle. The Pomodoro technique (twenty-five minutes of work followed by a five minute break) is one of the most popular techniques. A slightly modified version of the Pomodoro technique calls for 52 minutes of work and a 17 minute break. Finally, for those of us who rely on reaching flow-state for our work (creatives, take note), the flowtime technique may be more appropriate.
Then, it’s simply a matter of alternating between focused tasks and productive distractions. Make sure to keep your productive distraction breaks sacred. If we’re limited to four hours a day of deep work, you don’t want to further degrade the time available by stretching your mind too thin.
In the end, distraction is merely a by-product of our minds’ natural tendencies. And it’s much easier to work with it than against it. Master the art of productive distraction and you’ll be well on your way to optimal focus.
Have a favorite productive distraction? Please feel free to share it in the responses!
Originally published at https://blog.potential-x.com on June 11, 2019.