How do you stop getting distracted?

Tricky question right?

If you follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn, you'll have seen that I've been musing on that a bit recently, especially in relation to creativity.

There are, what I would consider to be, healthy distractions and unhealthy ones.

Healthy distractions would include reflective time.  You know the sort: you're part way through a project and, inspired by what you're working on, the mind goes on a delicious little daydream or down a fascinating google rabbit hole.  Of course, that's not useful if you're working to a deadline, but it can be really illuminating as it is where your brain is connecting the dots, forming new relationships between things and innovating new ideas.

The unhealthy distractions are nearly all tech based... in fact, I think I can be even more specific than that: the unhealthy distractions, in my world, exist entirely in my smart phone.  It's a hugely useful tool for all aspects of life, but it also has a habit of interrupting when I'm in creative flow. 

There are a number of reasons for this interruption.  For me, one of the reasons comes from the fact I'm a chronic people pleaser and there's an illogical guilt that someone might message/call/email and I'll be slow to respond.  Which, of course, is total nonsense.  There's also FOMO.  Since owning a smart phone, I definitely check the news more, and, naturally, social media.  That idea that something big is happening, regardless of what that big thing is, tempts me away from deep thought and over to click open the phone and check notifications.  And there is also the tricky ego-fuelled one of checking to see if people have liked your posts.  SO exhausting!

It really is bonkers, but I do feel reassured from the fact that one, I'm not alone as so many clients and friends feel the same and two, that being distracted by things like Facebook and Instagram is exactly what they're designed to do.  Billions... trillions of dollars are invested into the psychological tricks that keep you scrolling.

Among the handful of books I've read recently about distraction, Johann Hari's Stolen Focus was an excellent read.  He describes our current culture as "constantly skimming in an unsatisfactory whirr".

And that's just it!  It is so very unsatisfactory most of the time, which then breeds frustration because you've got sucked into scrolling again and even though there's a good book sitting right next to you that you actually want to read, or there's the remote within reach which will lead you to a film you've been meaning to watch for ages, or that bit of craft that has been a joy to make you just keep scrolling. 

It's easy to feel powerless in this situation, and it's even easier to be your harshest critic and blame yourself for not doing the worthwhile things you actually want to do, but can't seem to find time for because you're too distracted.

I think a good helping of self-compassion can go along way here.  Unless, by somewhat surprising chance, you're a super rich person who has happened to stumble over my blog, you'll not have spare billions to provide a counter attack against the distraction/attention specialists who work in social media.  It is pretty much inevitable all smart phone users will be sucked in, seemingly against their will, at some point or another.

So, you can stop beating yourself up about it and find ways to combat the problem yourself.

The author Johann Hari, who I mentioned above, actually has a clear locked container which the phone goes into an a timer is set: the container doesn't unlock until that timer is up.  Ooft!  That's brutal, but from what he writes about, pretty effective.

You can also find a way to time block that works for you.  It really is trial and error with how you divvy up your time.  Some people flourish when they divide their day up into 15 minute sections and plan each one carefully, then stick to it.  Others will totally rebel against this disciplined scheduling and end up achieving less than normal when trying this (I'm putting my hands up to this one!).

There's the pomodoro technique where you set a timer for a specific amount of time and fire in.  Most can find that useful for certain tasks. 

Whatever you choose, the key is to setting a time when you are going to focus.  This needs to be achievable: there's no point saying you're not going to be distracted by your phone for 5 hours when you have a habit of checking it every 10 mins.  The 5 hours would be so hard to achieve and, more importantly, it would be much harder to create a regular healthy habit if it becomes even harder to repeat day by day.

Setting a goal that is achieveable but also a little bit of a stretch so it's not too easy is the perfect sweet spot.  I really like to work in half hour increments - that works for me on all sorts of tasks, whether it's reading, working on a specific project or writing this blog. 

Most phones also have a digital wellbeing app which logs how long you've spent on your phone each day and on what apps.  This can be quite illuminating, and also a bit embarassing how much those hours tot up. Turning on the weekly report (or whatever your phone offers) can give you a little nudge each week.  After all, awareness is definitely the first step in solving a problem and you can learn a lot from those weekly stats.

If none of this feels like it's working, maybe it's time to invest in getting it sorted by having some sessions with a coach or a mentor: we are often more accountable to others than ourselves.  The act of investing is also a great motivator and will make it far more likely to make things stick.

Our brains are hard wired to take the easy road.  They don't want to work any harder than they need to, so sometimes we need to trick them into getting stuff done.  I talk about reward systems a lot because many of us respond very well to receiving a reward.  When it comes to rewards, my favourite brain trick is to tell myself that if I spend 30mins (or whatever) on this particular task, I will reward myself with 15mins of reading.  This nearly always works, which is surprising considering I had been avoiding both the task AND the reading beforehand.  Double win!

Creating some habits where the phone is ignored for a bit will make a massive difference and help you become a lot less distracted.  It will also start to create some space for the healthy distractions to come in: that juicy, fertile daydream time where new magic can occur.

I hope that the above sparks some ideas for you and that by consciously working against the distraction economy will result in the widening of creative space!

May 2023