What Really Happens When You Embrace Distraction

The very thing you avoid may be a valuable source of insight.

Ever since I read The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, I started thinking differently about distractions. Josh, who is a world-class chess and tai-chi champion, describes how he learned to channel distractions to his advantage.

As he was progressing in his chess career, he encountered a problem. Whenever he heard a particularly catchy song before a tournament, it would get stuck in his head and distract him while he played.

In the beginning, he tried to force the song out of his head — it wouldn’t let him focus on the game. But no matter how hard he tried, once a melody entered his mind it seemed impossible to get rid of it.

The more you fight with something, the bigger it becomes. Josh came to understand this very well.

After wrestling with this particular distraction for a while, Josh discovered that he could actually use it to his advantage. He trained himself to think to the rhythm of the song while he played. This made him thrive in tournaments again.

Josh turned what used to be his greatest obstacle into his facilitator and a source of inspiration. How did he do it?

He learned to accept that particular distraction as a part of his experience — instead of denying it.

Two Sources of Distraction

In my work as a writer, I face a lot of distraction.

By “a lot” I mean I feel tempted to stop what I’m currently doing and occupy myself with something else probably 5–10 times per hour.

Because as I work on my own from home, I need to constantly learn how to cope with my distractions — otherwise nothing gets done. There is no one standing by my side to tell me what to do and when.

My writing career is still “work in progress”, so it’s very obvious to me that I either learn how to manage myself or else, I get carried away by:

• reading instead of writing,
• copying instead of creating,
• old limiting habits instead of new beneficial ones.

I’ve read a lot of productivity advice and I try to implement it in my work. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don’t. And it still happens that I beat myself up for not being able to pull off a 100% productive day.

However, Josh Waitzkin’s story had taught me to look at productivity and distraction from a new angle.

It’s clear to me that distraction is an experience we all share. Even if you’re a productivity genius, you’re still going to have moments when your attention is all over the place.

What if being distracted is not only normal — but necessary part of our lives?

I decided to embrace a belief that distraction doesn’t have to be a “bad” thing, and that we’re able to use it to our advantage. Here’s what I found.

I noticed that all distractions come from one of two sources: internal or external. Interestingly, depending on which source it stems from, a distraction points you to a certain aspect of your experience.

Distraction rooted internally usually points to something in your external world that you’d like to change.

Distraction rooted externally is often a messenger showing you something about your internal world that you haven’t perceived or integrated before.

Now you may be thinking: Wtf? What the hell is she talking about? To explain it better, let’s follow with an example.

The Mechanics of Distraction 101

Imagine Penny, a college student getting ready for her final exams. For the past two weeks, she’s been spending most of her time reviewing all the material from the last semester.

She’s committed to preparing for the exams as best as she can. Yet, she’s prone to these two major kinds of distraction — internal and external.

The internally-sourced distraction manifests when she can’t focus on the studied topic anymore. Her mind wanders, rising numerous thoughts unrelated to her task.

She checks Facebook or eats something just to break the monotony of studying. This distraction calls her to do something about her external circumstances: take a break, switch to a different task, or — in an extreme case — make a change to her academic curriculum.

But external distraction works differently.

When Penny becomes distracted by a friend calling to invite her to a party, she experiences an internal conflict. Because she hasn’t set her priorities and goals in stone, she might not know how to respond to this situation.

She might feel like she should study, but she wants to go to the party. How does she choose the right thing to do? That’s how a distraction coming from the external world guides her to discover something new about herself.

That is — if she knows how to read the message.

Most of the self-help industry is concerned with the internally-sourced distraction — the one we have more control over. How To 10x Your Productivity, 365 Tips To Overcome Distraction or Why You Accomplish More By Doing Less are all headlines you know.

They try to appeal to your willpower and self-control as the guardians of your productivity and focus.

But what about the interruptions coming from the external world — the ones that you have no agency over? Like a sick friend who suddenly needs your help, Internet breaking down in the middle of an important call, or a social occasion that you feel like you should attend — even if it’s in the way of your goals?

I decided to investigate what’s the best way of dealing with the latter kind of distractions. The ones that seem to have nothing to do with me, but come in the most unexpected moments — often, when I feel like I’ve set myself up for the most productive day ever.

In the next part of this article, I will talk about how these external distractions may point to the places within ourselves that we need to work on. My observations are rooted in a holistic perspective on life. This means I see each aspect of life as intimately connected with all the other ones — even if I can’t perceive it directly.

Grounded in this holistic view, I trust that allowing distractions to guide me from time to time can be a valuable way of facilitating growth and accessing experiences that wouldn’t find me otherwise.

The Distraction Is a Message

“Distraction — an interruption to attention or anything that draws attention away from the primary task.” — Psychology Dictionary

How do you define your primary task at any given moment?

We often assume we know it, just because we are at it. Once we decided that now it’s time to do X — we default to it as the “primary task.”

But is it really primary? What about those cases when there’s something else to be taken care of, but we’re just not aware? This is a realistic scenario, no?

Here in the self-improvement paradigm on Medium, we talk a lot about setting goals and the importance of knowing what we want to achieve. Prioritize your tasks, stick to the plan, don’t get distracted, stay focused… That’s obviously great advice if you want to advance in any chosen area.

However, no matter how hard I try to stay organized and focused, there’s usually something I overlook. I concentrate on the wrong thing. I overlook a piece of information that seems redundant — but proves to be crucial later on.

My conscious mind might not even realize this. But this thing I’m missing is usually hovering around until I give it the attention it needs.

It doesn’t have to be directly related to work. Life demands a whole lot of tasks, roles and activities, but after all, they merge into one integral whole — which is our continuous experience. On one level, we can categorize this experience into what we call “professional life,” “private life,” “relationships,” “spiritual life,” “rest,” “self-care,” and so on.

But these artificially-defined sections have more in common than not. They constitute life as a whole.

They overlap, merge and impact one another. While I think I should be in the “work zone,” signals from the “emotional realm” or the “relationship area” may come in, trying to redirect my attention to an overlooked yet important issue.

That’s why I think it’s a good idea to be mindful of external “distractions.” They’re very likely to be messengers — saviours in disguise, reminding us about something that would we would otherwise neglect.

Sometimes, the plan just falls apart. When that happens I try to stay attentive to what is happening in my internal landscape.

Letting Go of Control

Of course, there are certain things we all must do to be successful, sustain ourselves, etc. I’m not encouraging you to stop doing them.

But there are also things you only believe you have to do. With those, if you just follow your preconceived plan, you may miss something else, possibly more important, waiting for your attention on a given day.

That’s when an incoming external distraction may be a helpful clue, rather than an annoying interruption. It can signal that you neglected another area of your life and that there’s something else you should take care of.

Let me give you another example.

I experienced one of those distracted days when I firsts started writing this post. In the morning, I said to myself: look, you are finishing this article today and publishing it on Medium. No excuses.

I started working early and went on for about two hours. It was going well and I decided to take a break and pop into a yoga class — and come back to work immediately after. When I came back, I was fully motivated to open my laptop straight away.

And then… my phone rang.

It was my brother to whom I hadn’t spoken for a few weeks, because we could catch each other. I decided to engage in the conversation for as long as we felt like because I hadn’t heard from him for so long. We enjoyed ourselves and when we hang up — I was still in the mood for work.

But I was also extremely hungry — so I decided to eat first and only then get back to writing. But before I finished eating, my phone rang again.

This time it was my close friend to whom I hadn’t spoken for… months. I just couldn’t have not picked up the phone — I was so excited to talk to him. I asked whether he had time to talk later in the day (at this point I still hoped to complete the article) — but he said he would be busy later. So we talked for over an hour.

Needless to say — I didn’t do any more work that day. Three more people called later in the afternoon and evening, and I think I easily spent 5+ hours on the phone in total (!).

Just to be clear — this is not what I usually do.

Distraction Was My Friend that Day

Now, this experience can be interpreted in two ways.

First one, which builds on the most common approach to productivity, would simply make me believe that I screwed up. I had my goals set and a “primary task” for that day was clearly defined. I should have just followed it.

I should have had my phone switched off or simply tell all those people that I couldn’t talk at the moment. Then I should have got back to my writing as soon as possible, complete my priority list for the day and only afterwards call everyone back.

This was the line of thinking I adopted in the first place. While talking to my brother I, for the most part, enjoyed the conversation. But in the back of my head I heard this nagging voice:

What are you doing, girl? You’re just finding excuses not to work! Being lazy! Look at yourself! You should get back to writing NOW.

This attitude restrained me from fully participating in my experience — I didn’t give myself entirely to the conversation with my brother, nor was I working. But with the second and then the third phone call, a new attitude started emerging.

The attitude of letting go.

I realized that the day was not unfolding as I had planned — but there was no point fighting it. The more you fight with something, the bigger it grows, remember? I understood that I was not going to publish my article that day and that it was okay. The deadline for it was only in my head.

Instead, I decided to participate fully in all of the phone conversations, since they were already happening. It was clearly a “call day” for me and the main theme was catching up with people that I haven’t heard from in a while.

I knew we probably wouldn’t speak anytime soon, so I decided to appreciate this rare opportunity to talk to each of them.

As I was letting go of control, I started noticing how those conversations, on that particular day, showed me exactly what I needed to learn, feel or realize. At the end of the day, I was convinced that even though this was something that I hadn’t scheduled as part of my work, talking to and hearing from these particular people was a step forward in my growth as a writer.

And — more importantly — as a human being.

Here’s what I received that day from my messengers — instead of publishing my article “on time.”

The Takeaways

• While I talked to my friend, he reminded me about certain details I needed to take care of when running my own writing business — things that I wouldn’t have thought of myself. He also gave me very practical tips on submitting taxes, which I realized I would need to take care of soon.
• During the conversation with my brother, I got to verbalize my visions and plans for the future. It was the first time in a while that I heard myself talking about them in such a specific, confident way. It pleased me, as I realized that I am much more precise about what I want to achieve than I was just a few months ago.
• In the same conversation with my brother, we started planning my trip to visit him. Discussing the details excited me, as I had been waiting for this visit for a long time.
• In a conversation with another friend, I got to talk about my spiritual experiences of the past weeks — things I don’t get to share very often. This exchange felt very supportive on an emotional level, as I felt fully understood and able to express some of my deepest experiences that I often can’t find the words for.
• Finally, during the last phone call of the day with someone special, I received a lot of direct encouragement to simply keep writing. I heard genuine appreciation and a sentence that stays with me until today, continuing to strengthen my confidence: “I see you as already successful”.

At the end of the day, I knew I wouldn’t trade all of that for simply finishing my article.

I can do the article any other time. In turn, the “distractions” I just described were an extraordinary opportunity to reconnect with people close to my heart, receive encouragement and a load of positive energy. This doesn’t just support my future writing — but also myself as a person, whatever else I will be doing.

Now, the only remaining question is this:

How can you tell whether your external interruptions are messengers, too?

What if the ones you experience are just random distractions that you can gain absolutely nothing from?

Here comes the best part: it’s you who decides about that.

If you choose to see them as random and meaningless — they will be. But if you see your experience, whatever it happens to be, as an opportunity to learn…

Then, you’ll learn indefinitely.

Strangely, that’s one of the few things in life that I’m absolutely certain about.