The Habit of Distraction

Do you have any habits? Of course you do! We all have habits. Some of them are good habits – we eat a healthy meal a couple of times a week or we make going to the gym a part of our routine. Some of them are bad habits – we smoke or we binge watch Netflix when we should be working. Humans are creatures of habit; we take comfort in repetition and in knowing what to expect. When we are engaged in activities which are habitual, we don’t have to think very hard, we don’t evaluate alternatives or compare courses of action. We just do what we always do simply because it is what we always do.

Unconscious habits

Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are engaging in a habit. When I was in high school, my class had to take a series of standardized test. I’m sure you can relate! The only space large enough for everyone to gather without being able to see each other’s papers was the cafeteria. On the last day of testing, the guidance counselor asked us how many of us were sitting in the exact same seat we had been sitting in for every other day of testing. There were literally hundreds of seats to choose from, but the great majority of us raised our hands realizing that we had habitually chosen the same seat every day. We weren’t conscious of that choice, but we made it just the same. Fun fact: There have actually been studies done which prove that students score higher on tests when they sit in the same seat where they learned the materials because there are fewer new stimuli, and they can focus better on the test.

One of the unconscious habits which we have all developed is distraction.

It is impossible to live in a developed society like ours with its constant stimulation, competing calls for our attention, multitude of opportunities, streaming news and social media without developing a habit of distraction. As if all of the external distraction wasn’t enough, even our own thoughts and worries can distract us.

Multitasking – Friend or Foe?

The habit of distraction has even been glorified as a positive trait. We don’t call it distraction in this case, we call it multi-tasking. Are you a master multi-tasker? Do you take pride in your ability to do several things at the same time and boost your productivity as a result? Do the competing demands of your life seem to demand that you multi-task in order to keep up and not disappoint anyone or fall behind on anything? Have you been praised or admired for your ability to multi-task? Welcome to the club! We have all developed a habit of multi-tasking in an attempt to keep up with the increasingly fast pace of society where we are expected to be instantly responsive to any number of requests from a variety of sources. Texts from your friends, comments on social media, calls from your parents, last minute changes to assignments in your classes….you’re on top of it.

Unfortunately, multi-tasking is a myth. Our human brains cannot do two things at once. The best they can do is to switch rapidly between tasks to trick us into thinking we are doing more than one thing at once. In further bad news, it takes our brains time to re-focus their attention from one task to another meaning that every time we switch between tasks which we think we are doing simultaneously, we lose valuable seconds of productivity. Even worse, it can take our brains a whopping 10-15 minutes to fully engage with a task. Bouncing between tasks is mentally exhausting. It creates stress, it lowers the quality of our work and it decreases the quantity of work we can do in a given period of time. We do less and we do it worse than we would if we could focus on one thing at a time. It’s depressing, I know.

There is good news though. If you can develop the habit of being distracted, you can also develop a habit of being focused. It will take more effort to form this new positive habit because your environment is working against you, but the benefits in gained productivity and improved quality of work are worth it. Try making the following changes to your study habits if you want to train yourself to be able to focus more effectively.

Healthy habits – Better Focus

Ritual and repetition

Create a ritual to send a message to brain that it is time to focus. New habits take time and repetition to solidify and become second nature. Plan to put at least a few weeks of repeated practice into a time-to-focus ritual before it triggers an immediate and re-creatable state of focus. Your ritual might include

· Studying in the same place frequently, if not exclusively

· Playing the same instrumental music

· Having the same drink or snack

· Taking a few deep breaths and setting an intention

· A pre-study session set of stretches or exercises to loosen your muscles

· Lighting the same scent of candle or using an essential oil

Relax – If you are stressed and worried about other things in your life, it is going to be hard to focus on your task. Take a few deep breaths before you start trying to focus. It will only take a minute. Use that minute to shift your mindset. If thoughts and worries are distracting you, try jotting them down on a piece of paper and promising yourself that you will think about them later. Attempting to bullying distracting thoughts out of your head is difficult and often creates more stress than it eliminates.

Reduce distractions – Our brains have been trained to be distracted by all of the stimuli we are exposed to. In order to focus, we need to eliminate those distractions. Common distractions which you should strive to exclude from your study space and time include:

· Social media and YouTube

· Phone notifications

· Text messages

· Emails

· Music with lyrics

· Noisy roommates

· Other things on your desk

· Excessive background noise in a public study space

· A study space which is too stimulating

· Your own thoughts and worries

· Physical discomfort (a bad chair, high/low temperature, hunger)

Avoid multitasking! –Make a habit of denying yourself quick and easy distractions (hello, social media) or bouncing between complicated tasks during your study time.

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”

Gary Keller

Challenge – Your brain is looking for the stimulation it has become accustomed to in its habit of distraction. Feed your brain that stimulation it craves by making sure what you are doing is hard enough that you are not bored, but not so hard that you become frustrated and overwhelmed. You should feel a comfortable stimulating level of challenge. If the task you are doing is too easy, try to make a game of it to add some challenge or save it for a time when you are in a more distracting atmosphere or only have a few minutes to work on it. If the task is too difficult, try breaking it down into smaller steps, approaching it in a different way or finding a friend to help.

Manage your Schedule – Try to schedule study sessions of at least 90 minutes during which you can work on just one subject or assignment. Blocking your schedule into these large pieces allows you to enter the state of focus and remain there for a significant period of time without being distracted by the next task you need to do. If your schedule allows, set up your week so that you can work on the same type of task or the same class for a whole day on the same day every week.

If you are still having trouble with a habit of distraction or want to work more on achieving focused study time to improve the quality of your work and decrease the amount of time it takes you to complete it, schedule a coaching session with me. Let’s talk about what is distracting you.