This is what’s actually distracting us from doing focused work
Starting last week, I noticed how the driven and wanting part of me wants to just push ahead. It wants to make up for ‘lost time’ caused by travelling the week before. This rather relentless voice keeps telling me about all of the things I am meant to be focusing on right now. It’s taking me out of the moment, away from the work I’m currently doing and producing a lot of fear inside of me. It also opens me up to external distractions. For me, this comes mainly in the form of food and ‘educational’ videos on YouTube.
I’ve been sitting with the power of distractions, especially internal distractions, a lot over the last few weeks. That’s why I want to dedicate this article to our internal distractions and what we can do to befriend them and better manage them.
External vs. internal distractions It’s often believed that modern technology and what it enables us to do is the worst enemy of focused work. Of course, that’s true in many respects but it ignores a much bigger issue that underlies external distractions. Almost always, external distractions are caused by internal distractions. We are tired, annoyed, we are still ruminating about an argument with our partner which remains unresolved or we are thinking about a conversation we need to have with a client or colleague that makes us feel uncomfortable. As a response, we move towards external distractions – food, mindless scrolling or cleaning our home. All in an attempt to feel in control again and / or to feel better about ourselves or the situation.
How to befriend and gently manage internal distractions Imagine you are in the middle of writing a piece of content or a report. But then, a few minutes into writing, an intrustive thought is starting to creep in. It starts to feel uncomfortable, you are temporarily taken away from what you are doing with an urge to follow the thoughts that are arising. What to do now?
Here are some in-the-moment and longer-term approaches you could take.
Breathing & movement A great in-the-moment tool to get you to re-focus is to take a few deep breaths. Often internal triggers are driven by thoughts about the past or worries about the future. Paying attention to your breath can break this cycle and allow you to get back to the present moment again. Getting up and moving around or stretching is also a great way to stop our thoughts from taking us further away. Once you’ve interrupted the unconscious flow of thoughts by breathing or moving, it’s hopefully much easier for you to get back to your work with renewed focus.
The 10-minute rule Nir Eyal suggests in his book ‘Indistractable’ another great tool that can be accessed whenever distractions arise. He calls it the 10-minute rule. This rule suggests that rather than giving in to the distraction, try saying to yourself ‘I’m going to work on this for 10 more minutes and then I’ll do xyz (insert distraction of choice)’. Chances are that after 10 minutes of continuing your work you will have forgotten about the thing that distracted you in the first place.
Write down your triggers This is another in-the-moment tool that will also lead you into thinking about what’s behind our distractions. Here, write down what triggered the distraction and how you are feeling right now. For example, ‘I find it hard to concentrate because I didn’t sleep well last. I’m tired.’ or ‘I can’t stop thinking about the argument I had with my partner. We didn’t resolve it and I feel frustrated and angry but also lonely.’ By writing down what triggered you and how you feel, can help you move on with your work knowing that you only temporarily parking the trigger until after you’ve finished your work and you can make a promise to yourself that you are going to spend time with it later. Aim to write down your triggers for a week or two.
Addressing your triggers Now that you’ve been keeping track of your triggers for a little while, you should usually see patterns emerge. For example, if you constantly feel distracted and can’t focus on your work following unresolved arguments, you can slowly begin to address this.
Reassess your potential & self-compassion How we talk to ourselves matters a lot. Especially when we feel distracted, we can very easily say to ourselves how lazy we are, that we just don’t have it in us to finish whatever we are working on and anything else the inner critic might throw at us. There are two great ways to approach this. Firstly, by using language to encourage ourselves. ‘I can do this. I have everything I need to succeed.’ These are great mantras to repeat when we feel distracted by fear or doubt. Secondly, self-compassion can support you too. Speaking to ourselves as we would to a good friend and being kind to ourselves when we, for example, give in to a distraction and spend more time than we want to on our devices. A more self-compassionate approach can help us to come back more easily to our work after we’ve temporarily followed a distraction.