Distraction = dis-traction

5 tips to stay on track and conserve brainpower

How often do you get distracted when you're doing something?

At the gym?

At work?

In the car?

Maybe you’re talking to someone, looking over their shoulder because something else caught your eye?

Well, I was at the gym recently, the outdoor gym, enjoying the sunshine, and listening to an audiobook. It was Jim Kwik's book called Limitless. In this book, he talks about the concept of distraction. 

DISTRACTION = DIS-TRACTION

If we break the word distraction into two pieces it's actually dis-traction. So we could argue that distraction is the loss of traction. By the way, this is not my content, this came out of the audiobook, to give the credit to Jim, but I wanted to share it with you because for me it was an aha moment. When I thought about the idea that distraction is 'dis-traction', I got distracted, jumped straight on my phone and started making notes about this aha moment. My brain went off into some creative mode about what I could do to teach you about this concept of distraction. 

23 minutes to get back on task

So, if we can argue that distraction is as Jim said 'the loss of traction'. then every time we get distracted by something we lose traction. He even says that according to some research it takes us on average 23 minutes to get back on to our task after we've been distracted. Now some people will say it takes five minutes, and some people will argue that they can multitask until the cows come home! However, there's also research among psychologists that suggest we can't. We can only have one thought at a time. We can only do one thing well at a time, and each time we chop and change, we alt+tab from one task to another, from one email to another, from one paper to another, from one message to another, it takes time to get back into the gear of what we were focusing on. Even if it's a nanosecond it takes time, and time is energy.

You’re expending your energy

When you think about it, you're expending energy in your brain each time you swap tasks. I encourage you next time you're doing something to do one thing only. If you're at the gym, be at the gym. Don't be hogging the equipment, looking at your device, scrolling to see what everyone else is doing because hopefully, they're at the gym too, working out.

5 tips to stay on track and conserve brainpower:

  1. declutter your environment

  2. close unneeded applications and browser windows (yes! I know! this can be such an inconvenience, but you can bookmark or restore open tabs)

  3. put your phone on flight mode

  4. listen to classical or calming music, preferably with noise-cancelling headphones

  5. use a timer or app such as Pomodoro and focus for 25 minute sessions

In summary: Please think about that concept of distraction as a loss of traction that takes us sometimes up to 23 minutes to get back on task.

Be amazing!

Dan

PS. If you’re enjoying these videos there’s plenty more below.

Dan KussComment