A Beginners' Guide to Becoming In-distractible
Dealing with triggers and improving productivity by managing distractions
Our days are build of habit blocks. Knowingly or unknowingly, we repeat the same set of behavior over and over again as we go through our lives. The net outcome of our days essentially depends upon the habits that we have. Suboptimal habits result in eroding productivity from our daily lives, whereas great habits help us make most of our potentials.
In terms of both, time & energy, all of us start our days with limited resources. There are only a set of habits we can perform utilizing those limited resources. If our days are built of habits which renders us incapable of performing at the best of our abilities, we end up with a day not well lived.
One such suboptimal habit that we form is distraction. If not managed well, they can potentially chip away all our time. Distraction is not a bug, it is a feature. We probably cannot do away with it, but certainly reduce its eroding effect on our daily lives.
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In this post
A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming In-distractable
Understanding Behaviour & Habits
Distraction as a Habit
Becoming In-distractible
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Understanding Behaviour & Habits
Our lives are a sequence of events which happens essentially as responses to stimulus. The simplest way to define behavior is that they are standardized responses to known stimulus. Habits are those behaviour which we perform so often that they become a routine, and we follow them almost subconsciously.
The good news is that most of the behaviour and habits that we exhibit are not involuntary. We learn them and so, can unlearn & relearn. Since the behaviour and habits are responses, they manifest on triggers. Such triggers can be broadly divided in two categories - internal and external.
Internal triggers comes from within - feelings and thoughts. When we feel hungry, it triggers some behavioural responses; we look for food and eat. When we feel cold, we wear warmer clothes. When we feel lonely, we look to connect with people.
External triggers are, well external - the pings, rings and dings. A song playing somewhere send us down the memory lane. The continuous pings on the phone, take us away from the work.
It is our ability to manage our responses to these triggers helps us form habits that help us improve our day to day life.
Distraction as a Habit
We often make mistake of identifying objects - social media, content, people, events outside our window - as distraction. Whereas, they are mere harbours we go to when we are already distracted.
Linguistically, distraction is opposite of traction. Traction can be defined as useful action we have engaged in to purposefully. Thus distractions are those behaviour which takes us away from meaningful actions and erodes our productivity.
It is important to understand that all distractions aren’t bad. We need to eat to maintain our health, so irrespective of how serious a work we are engaged in, our internal trigger of hunger should be able to distract us from it. Similarly, if there is a sense of danger around us, we should get distracted from whatever we are engrossed in. Do understand that what brings us back to our focussed work from the state of distraction, is also distraction.
Picture this, you are extremely focussed on a work you are doing and suddenly feel hungry. You get distracted and cannot focus anymore, so walk to the kitchen to eat an apple to supress your hunger pangs. On your way back, you catch a glimpse of a show running on TV in the living room and get hooked. Now what was supposed to be a quick food run, turns in to you standing at the living room doorway and watching a show.
What gets you back to working? Distraction. At some point while standing there, you get an internal trigger, making you uneasy about whiling your time away when there is work to do. You get distracted from whatever you were watching and get back to your workstation.
So why do we want to become in-distractible? Because a series of distraction end up not only reducing end productivity, but also lead us in to a state where we are never fully in the moment. Even in our example above, whatever time spent watching the show wouldn’t really be ‘enjoying the show’. When ridden with distractions, all experiences are sub-optimal.
If you will reflect closely on your behavior, you will realize that most of the distractions that we go through during any activity are micro-habits we have formed as a coping mechanism or escape from feelings of anxiety, fear and guilt. While watching Netflix, the guilt of not being more productive at work makes us quickly check the work mail, or slack thread. Or, while at work, the anxiety makes us escape to infinite scroll of Instagram. These feelings - the internal triggers - are even further aggravated in presence of external triggers - the pings.
We are self - distracting creatures. Distractions are habits that we have built over time. What we label as distractions are just the things we latch to when we are distracted.
Becoming In-distractible
Once we have recognized that distractions are part of our own behavioural pattern, it makes it possible to manage them. Essentially there are two things that we can do: reduce such stimulus which leads to distraction, or change response when such stimulus occur. Easier said than done. Let’s break it down further.
Opportunity for distraction comes from uncertainty and unpredictability. The whole cycle of anxiety, fear and guilt around the ‘traction’ comes when we are not sure about what, when and how much do we need to do. Those situations create internal triggers, which leads us to latch to immediately available external trigger and we land in to the zone of distraction. To become in-distractible, these are the tree things that we essentially need to be in control of.
Reducing Opportunity for Distraction
Distraction is opposite of traction. So to identify distraction, it is extremely important to first define traction. All our activities in life can be put under three headers - work, relationship and ourselves. If we do not know what we are currently supposed to be engaging in, and if we later are going to engage in the others; that leads to us being anxious about missing out on something, and we end up being distracted.
Effective way to reduce these kind of distractions, is to identify and make time for your ‘tractions’. A well defined day with various components of our lives scheduled in adds certainty and predictability. If we know that we have allotted time to scroll through social media, our fear to miss out on something will be reduced. If we know exactly what and how much we want to achieve from our work, we will be less anxious and more disciplined.
So, defining our daily activities, goals and allotting time for all of them reduces the opportunity for distractions.
Managing Internal Triggers
Understand that distractions are a line of defence and a coping mechanism, so you will never get rid of them. Reducing the opportunity for distraction will help us take away the unnecessary and avoidable distraction. But there still be triggers - feelings and thoughts - which needs to be managed to stay in-distractible.
To manage internal triggers which lead to distraction, reflect a bit on the events preceding those triggers, and then map your process till the response to those triggers are generated. The understanding of when trigger happens, and how we respond to it helps us mitigate the distraction. If hunger leads to you leaving the workstation and end up in prolonged distraction, keeping a snack on table might help.
Distractive triggers often happen in liminal times - when you are shifting pace of work, getting off from a call or transitioning from one work to another. Knowing why you are getting the trigger and having mitigation process helps negating the distraction.
Ultimately, redefine and reimaging your responses to known triggers. If you are confused with what you are working on, and it triggers anxiety; instead of looking out of the window, build a habit of writing down what you are finding difficult to understand. Instead of getting distracted, you would be redrawn right back in to what you were doing.
Blocking External Triggers
Unwanted external triggers are probably what reduced our productivity most often and way more than other factors when we are intently engaged in work. These are also which takes us away from ‘traction’ for larger amount of time as they are inherently attached to an engaging object - content, phone, people etc. Thankfully it is relatively easier to understand and manage, given its external nature.
Set up an environment which reduces the possibility for such triggers to exist - noise cancelling earphones, do not disturb note for people, mobile on silent, all notification off etc. Have a schedule for all kind of device usage and breaks to engage with people.
It requires a bit of self discipline to keep yourself away from all those triggers and build the capacity to say ‘no’ when they appear. You need to recognize and remind yourself, that a breaking news probably doesn’t need to be followed minute by minute, or a mail isn’t required to be responded immediately. The WhatsApp messages which require your immediate attention are rare.
Identify and list down all those things that act as an external trigger for you. Put them in three categories - those which can be eliminated by redesigning environment, those which requires a conscious disconnect and those which you can’t do away with. Turn the last category, from distraction to traction by allotting dedicated time for them.
Distraction is a necessity of life and they will be around. What we can do is that ensure we are in control of them and not the other way round.
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