distractions

Constant distractions

Why do we need constant distractions?
I’m not immune to the endless scrolling, the need to check something, watch something, fill the silence but I have started to notice it more. I remember being a child, sitting at the breakfast table reading the back of the cereal box just because it was there. I wasn’t in a hurry to escape my own thoughts and nowadays that kind of presence feels rare.

I’m not trying to eliminate distraction completely as that’s neither realistic nor necessary, but I do want balance. I want to trust my gut, make better decisions, and avoid being seduced by the wrong things for superficial reasons. And I’m aware that kind of clarity doesn’t come from wishing, it comes from practice.

You have to learn how to use your space.
You have to build the habits.
You have to create a sense of discipline.

Not because you can control everything, but because freedom often begins with structure. What’s your relationship with distraction?

Better choices

I think that one of the most wonderful things about marketing is that you can create huge amounts of delight, memorability, and distraction with relatively small levels of expenditure. Organisations, businesses, and governments often seek grandiose solutions, overlooking the fact that small things can also have a profound impact human behaviour. Encouraging people to make better choices has a greater influence than using punishment as a deterrent. Most human actions deviate from physical laws, and are often disproportionate in nature, unlike the predictability of physics. The correlation between ‘Input A’ and ‘Output B’ is usually insignificant in human behaviour and can even be contradictory.

Does this sound familiar?

Distractions have no effect on the truly focused individual as winners focus on the goal, not the pain. There four types of distractions or should I call them, interruptions you will face in your work:

1.     Meetings, office visitors and loud colleagues
2.     E-mail, telephone notifications and meetings
3.     Team lunches, calls from loved one, coffee machine conversations
4.     Social media, news websites, instant messaging 

According to Tim Ferris, we need to “…limit e-mail consumption and production. This is the greatest single interruption in the modern world.” What do you think?

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We are very distracted

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We are living in environments with all kinds of competing information and we often work and live-in places that are also overloaded with information. The ability to selectively focus on certain things and ignore other things is part of our capacity as humans. There are distractions everywhere and this is the first time in human history where almost every on the planet has a mobile device. These devices have all kinds of attractions, amusements, and diversions, so we are constantly being pulled away from that one thing we need to do, and I think mindfulness can help.  

What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is where you use your strength of concentration to become a witness to your own thoughts and feelings. I think mindfulness is a mental work out, every time you bring your mind back into focus you are strengthening your concentration. Instead of being fused by our experience, we can step back and still participate in the experience fully and have more control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

 

Your ability as a salesperson to fix your attention on what matters and ignore distractions is a valid predictor of positive financial outcomes. Mindfulness is a method of training your attention in bringing it where you want and keeping where you want it to be. Contact me via e-mail for 1:1 coaching cognitive control sessions.