On a recent trip to visit my sister’s family in southern California, I was having a wonderful time playing with my four-year-old niece when she suddenly got distracted, yelled “Mailman!” and—abandoning our game—raced out the door to the mailbox.
I was amazed by how fast she moved, and I said so to my brother-in-law.
“That’s nothing.” He replied. “You should see what happens when she hears the ice cream truck.”
We both laughed, and he added: “I guess we’re lucky that the mailman only comes around once a day and that the ice cream man only appears in the summer. Otherwise, it would probably be pandemonium around here.”
***
In our contemporary digital environment, the seductive sounds of the mailman and the ice cream truck are never more than a distracting click away. It’s little wonder that getting things done today seems harder than ever.
Twenty years ago, I could focus long enough to produce a 20-page research paper in one sitting. But today, I sometimes struggle to write a single page without checking my email, clicking over to Google News, or checking the price of a stock that I don’t even own. Why does it occasionally seem like I am less productive today, when I am more experienced, smarter, and more professionally competent than at any other point in my life?
Recent research on willpower (i.e. self-control) and decision fatigue summarized in the book Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney suggests an answer. To simplify, our current digital environment of an ever-present mailman and legions of ice cream trucks (i.e. tantalizing online distractions) require an almost super-human amount of self-control. Willpower turns out to be finite, and it must be replenished through adequate rest and proper nutrition to function optimally. Furthermore, every single decision (to click here or there; to answer this email; to send a text) exerts a cognitive demand that, cumulatively, can quickly burn through our finite self-control. And when our willpower is eroded, it is even harder to resist distractions, concentrate on the task at hand, and gather up the focus we need to do our best work.
Two decades ago, when I sat down at a bulky (and expensive) computer to work, there was no Internet to distract me and there was no smart phone—not even a dumb phone—in my pocket to test my willpower.
The omnipresent mailman and the ice cream trucks of today aren’t going anywhere. We cannot, and should not, give up our remarkable digital devices and other modern technologies because they simply yield so many overwhelmingly positive benefits. The only real solution to these digitally-inspired distractions that degrade our focus is to modify the way we work with them to preserve our precious concentration and attention.
Here are a five simple but effective ways to push back against the distractions of the digital era and regain some focus.
- Check email as infrequently as possible. Research suggests that email can be more distracting and exact higher cognitive burdens than web surfing.
- Give yourself the first 30, 60, or 90 minutes of the day to work, uninterrupted, on what’s most important to you. Don’t start your day reacting to someone else’s priorities.
- Block or limit (through any web browser) websites that drain away your time and attention.
- Review your browsing history daily to monitor where your time and attention are going.
- Numerous studies suggest that controlled breathing can improve concentration. Deep, relaxed breathing can be a simple but powerful way to gather back up some of your precious focus.