Home

Distractions

Definitions, common examples, elimination, prevention.


Contents


Definitions

I define two types of distractions in my life: conscious (CD) and unconscious (UCD), sometimes used interchangeably with intentional or unintentional. A CD occurs when the person purposely engages in the activity, and are generally used to avoid thinking about or doing something unpleasant. UCDs occur when the person is engaged in the activity without actively realizing it. CDs can turn into UCDs over time and without effort: I now automatically pull out my phone when I'm bored or waiting for something to distract from boredom. UCDs can turn into CDs once the person recognizes the unconscious portion of it, which allows them to work on eliminating it from their repertoire of distractions.

Distractions are net negative. They take away from the beauty of the present, from productivity, from the value that focusing attention on a single activity provides.


Examples

Most of these examples have some personal relevance to them, but not entirely. Details have been added or changed to get the point across stronger or more easily.

Before

I

A gym-goer spends his rest time between sets mindlessly browsing social media feeds, only taking every couple of minutes or so to do another semi-heavy set of a semi-useful exercise. Two hours quickly pass by with minimal work and maximum mind wandering. Two years quickly pass by with minimal progress and maximum confusion. How did I not get stronger? How did I not notice myself not getting stronger?

II

A recent widow spends their days furiously working to avoid the deafening silence that comes when they stop. Therapy and facing the problem (and fact) of loneliness is avoided, allowing pressure to build inside and preventing emotions from being worked through for the better. When the pent up emotions reach a critical level, the outburst is markedly more intense and prolonged than it would have been had they dealt with it from the beginning. Why can I not deal with this?

III

A young adult spends his evenings after university classes playing video games with his real-life friends, choosing the digital world over real-life opportunities. Eventually they move on with their lives, achieving successful careers and developing their families, leaving him to have fewer friends than most. Why do I have such few friends in real life? Why am I this way?

IV

A student begins exam preparation a week in advance, blocking out three hours of their night devoted to studying. They spend the first hour studying but quickly diverge to texting friends and mindless browsing. The exam is challenging, much more than was expected, and the grade reflects that. How could I do so poorly when I studied for 15 hours?

V

An employee spends 50 hours of their week away from home (away from home != in the office), only 35 of which are spent truly working. The remaining are spent chatting with coworkers, browsing the internet on both the phone and computer, and taking long lunches. Review time rolls around and their performance is rated unsatisfactory: distracted, does not complete work in a timely manner, and regularly needs to be assigned work are just a few of the comments on the paper. How can I be graded like this when I spend 10 hours a day at work?

VI

A single man comes home to a personal to-do list after a long day of work, choosing to spend the first hour relaxing by watching YouTube and browsing Reddit. Sunlight fades unbeknownst to the man, the clock continuing to tick towards his standard bedtime. He looks at the clock, realizing his relaxation hour had slyly turned into three and it was now time for dinner, followed by bed shortly thereafter. Where did the time go? How have I gotten nothing done?

VII

The teenager is on vacation with his family, but instead of choosing to spend quality time with them, opts for games and texting on their phone, two distractions that are so easily accessible anywhere else in the world. They drive through the winding roads of northern California with the windows down and family theme song playing, but to no reaction by the child—they are immersed in their digital world, immune from any input given by the world and people around them. Their father dies unexpectedly a few weeks later and with it the joy of most of their life. The phone games become bland and the texting monotonous and tedious. But quality time with friends and family? Pure bliss, pure rapture. Why did I not experience this before when I still had the chance to?

Reflections

I

The gym-goer does some back-of-the-napkin math and realizes he only gets about 15 sets of quality work in during his exercise days. He goes to ask a forum how to improve and realizes he knows very little about exercise: they mention unknown terms like "progressive overload" and ask what routine he's running. Two hours later and he's learned the basics of strength training and is running a reputable routine. Two years later and he's significantly stronger than he thought he would be in five years.

II

The widow has a stress-induced health scare and the doctor asks about any recent events or lifestyle changes that could have caused such an abnormality to occur. The spouse's death and long working hours are both mentioned, to which the doctor asks about any mental health counseling they've been seeing, and if not, why not. The widow realizes she's neglected this for fear of... what exactly? Breaking down? Thinking more about their spouse? They finish the visit and immediately enroll in therapy, seeing improvements in just a few months after starting.

III

The young adult thinks back to all the times he opted to stay in with his console instead of going out and experiencing new things with potential friends. He vows to say yes to any future invite, eventually forming a strong friend group and meeting his wife.

IV

The student thinks back to how much time they actually studied, and erring on the side of caution, decides to time themselves the next time they have a long study session. The clock starts at 7:00pm, the first break begins at 8:00pm and ends at 10:30pm... wait, what? The phone emits a malicious glow of distraction, to which they banish from the room during the next session. No breaks are had for three hours and the following exam reflects that.

V

The employee reviews their average day. Get in at 7:00am, coffee break from 7:30-8:00am, lunch from 11:00am-12:30pm, another coffee break from 2:00-2:30pm, haphazardly do some work while talking with the cubemate, browse the internet. All in all, about six hours of meh-quality work a day, way less than the 50 that was in their mind! They decide to drink coffee while working, bring their lunch from home, and switch desks. Mid-year reviews show an unmistakable improvement in productivity beginning soon after.

VI

The single man first estimates the time he spends on his computer, then installs a productivity tracker on his laptop to track where his times goes. Every "unproductive" activity's real usage is over two times the usage he estimated! Limits are set for distracting websites and apps, effectively locking them down after an hour is spent on them. He is forced to work on his to-dos, leading him to rekindle his interest in hobbies.

VII

The teenager looks back at his family vacation photos over the past years and notices they all have common themes of weak smiles and headphone in their ear. Memories come flooding in on how average those trips seemed to him, another day no different from home. They make an effort to put away their phone when with friends and family and truly try to enjoy their company. They form stronger connections with their immediate and distant family alike, finally coming to the realization that this is why everyone enjoys family vacations so much.


Elimination

The commonality between the reflections is the reflection itself. Each person looked back on their past behavior with a healthy dose of willingness to accept they were wrong and things need to change.

First, identify something in life that a) isn't providing as much satisfaction as expected, b) is a lackluster area that needs improving, or c) is a source of stress in life.

Second, review and brainstorm any actions taken that may be the cause of a) lack of satisfaction, b) lack of improvement, or c) stress.

Third, identify which actions can be taken (these would be new actions), can be eliminated (these are current actions that are contributing to a), b), and c)), or changed/reduced (current actions). A few examples:

  1. New: Install technology time tracker on phone and computer and review each daily, weekly, and monthly.
  2. Eliminate: Put the phone away during exercise time.
  3. Change/mitigate: Begin taking working coffee breaks and shorter lunches.

Distractions are a fixed-value, one-player game, where points are real-world time: any value (time) that goes towards distractions takes away from other productive time. This is a key point given that time is the most valuable commodity. Again, eliminate distractions and receive free time in return.

Fourth, enact those additions/changes/subtractions and reap the benefits. Continue subtracting and modifying as possible and as reasonable. Continue reviewing regularly to find hidden distractions. Review with a partner to get a second perspective.


Prevention

Like habits, the faster a distraction is prevented from developing the easier it is to do so. If a developing distraction is noticed, understand the root cause as to why it's developing, then find a way to eliminate said cause. This will likely eliminate the distraction in the same fell swoop. For example, if I find myself browsing my phone before studying and look into it a bit deeper, I can see I don't like studying. Is there a way I can eliminate this dread, i.e., make studying actually enjoyable? I can invite friends, reward myself in some form for completing X hours of studying, etc. More enjoyment means less dread means less distractions.


Addendum

Mark Twight includes a Sunday Sermon titled Distraction as a chapter of nonprophet's Raze the Rejects zine:

Some distractions are just that, minor disturbances that have a little influence on one’s objective or the training to achieve it. Usually, once the going gets hard enough, a small distraction is easily forgotten, and may be eradicated.

However, some distractions are poisonous. They sap energy, will, concentration and sleep. The effect on long-term progress can be significant, varying from an annoying deviation to a total roadblock. If you can’t sort out your stressors or distractions to clear the way ahead you must adapt training, i.e. use training to de-stress instead of causing more stress. And then accept that you cannot sign it simultaneously pro-gress

Sooner or later, as with all things, how are you address distraction is determined by your priorities. If you objective is important enough you will relegate distractions to a lower tier, it may be kicked him out of the way altogether, but if the objective is secondary then distractions are allowed, or their effect isn’t noticed. Some folks actually encourage them because they enjoy the drama. And others use distractions to (unconsciously, effectively) sabotage themselves.

We confront this frequently. Usually we start by helping the individual simply to notice distractions, and how they influence attitude or concentration in the gym. If someone is paying us we figure out that s/he should organize him/herself to earn the biggest return from the investment in training time. We want that outcome so we try to teach it but if the trainee resist the light touch we turn up the volume. If that doesn’t work we resort to the serious discussion know Coach wants to have with an athlete without first having invested time and energy getting to know them.

It can take weeks or months to reach a point where we may talk seriously about focus, dedication, the importance of the goal, and what the individual would or would not do on his or her own time. We are willing to say we need saying, which is what few people are eager to hear.

We force this issue because we want to leave the student to an ice conclusion regarding the importance of their goal. If both parties know where the objective sit in the student's hierarchy it is easy to structure the training, and to enforce the various rules regarding potential distractions.

For example, if your goal is secondary then feel free to spend your training time addressing distractions on the phone, and to forgo proper nutrition, recovery and sleep.

In this case you must also lower your expectations (and your commentary and excuses) because, at the minimum, this will reduce the stress you place on yourself, and us. But if the objective is primary — for whatever reason — then your phone isn’t welcome the gym, and if you’re distracted I’ll send you home to get your shit together.

I may set up situations that test your ability to resist distraction, and to express your dedication, and every time you reinforce the importance of your goal you may yourself more impervious to distraction.

The drama of the past becomes the trivia of the present. And your investment, of time, of effort, and of money starts to bring a return unimaginable in any economic market.


See Also