Picture this:
You have that burning fire within to be the best version of yourself and stand out with the sheer force of will and determination to excel at your studies. You get your laptop, connect your monitor, bash out the new mechanical keyboard, ready your notebooks, spread the wide array of pens and sticky notes, take a sip of the-oh-so-delicious tea/coffee. You crack your knuckles, give a slight I-am-the-best smirk, and get to work.
20 minutes later you catch yourself scrolling cat reels on Instagram. In the past 20 minutes, you have done everything ranging from arguing with your mother, irritating your sister, stalking your crush to playing book cricket with yourself and simply contemplating the existence of life. You had everything you needed to study but apparently, everything happened other than the chapters you needed to finish.
So…. What exactly went wrong? You were all set to conquer the world but all you could conquer was Instagram’s reel algorithm. In this blog, we deep dive into the what, why, and how of distractions.
WHAT ARE DISTRACTIONS?
A distraction is a trigger in the form of an event (physical, mental, or emotional) or a circumstance that prohibits you from focusing on an allocated task and taking it to completion. The Instagram notifications, family arguments, the screaming neighborhood kid, the random orders to go grocery shopping are all various instances of distractions.
Distractions have served as an adversary for students across the globe for a long time. They have forever stopped students from reaching the full extent of their potential and making great things happen. Distractions can be so subtle that you don’t even notice you are distracted until the knife of deadlines is hanging over your head. This is what makes them a silent productivity killer. They work on the “snowball effect”, we do not see any changes in the short run but over a longer period of time, distractions are nothing short of the weed that disseminates the entire forest. We have all suffered from the curse of distractions in our lives, but the problem escalates when it starts to hinder what we actually want to be in our lives in the aspects of academics, careers, relationships, and society.
Due to all these reasons, the elimination of distractions is the top priority for GenZ today. We, the youth, understand what distractions can lead to and have been taking steps to reduce them (can’t be zero peeps, this world is not freaking idealistic).
We will learn about this enigma further in this article. However, before proceeding, the very basic benefits of riding distractions are:
- More focused work sessions resulting in enhanced productivity.
- Greater intellect
- Enhanced peace of mind and mindfulness
- Better well-being etc.
WHY DO DISTRACTIONS EVEN EXIST?
Distractions stem from a lot of internal and external factors. However, a major reason for distractions is that we are humans (yep, you read it correctly)! We are humans and thus we tend to be attracted to things that do not demand effort and are easy on our brain and body. The root cause of distractions is our psychology to go with things that do not demand extensive hard work, willpower, or dedication.
Other internal and external factors affect the extent of your distraction as well. While both are dangerous, external sources can still be ignored or overcome but it is the internal ones that possess the actual danger.
In today’s world though, it is necessary to effectively and proactively juggle the above-mentioned traits to finish first in the race to success.
But not to fear my weary warriors, your brother went through all this as well and is here to give you the solution to conquer this seemingly insurmountable mountain of distractions.
HOW TO SPOT AND COMBAT DISTRACTIONS?
My journey in combating distractions started with my mother’s incessant nagging. Her nagging was the first red flag in my brain and it was a few days later, I noticed that she was correct. I tried searching on the internet (just like you guys 😏😏) and tried a few methods but to no avail. I discussed my problem with my mother and she gave me a list of possible solutions. I experimented and figured out what worked for me.
I would love to mention the roadmap that she took me on and I would love it if you guys would read the entire thing and make a plan that suits your personality.
Spotting distractions can be a tricky bit of business. First and foremost, jot down the happenings of the day. No matter what you do, just make an entry into a journal for what you did in the past hour. Google Calendar is a great tool for this.
Complete this exercise for the next 7 days without fail.
Now sit down and analyze all the times you let your mind get distracted. Find out the reason for the same and make a distraction vs reason table. You will notice that a lot of reasons are repeated more than once and there is one annoying reason that just keeps repeating. Rank the reasons on the frequency of their occurrence.
Kudos readers, you just spotted your top distractions. This process can be incredibly frustrating; it is difficult to continue on a journey where you see no results (trust me, I know 🙁). Any time you feel this is crap, just remind yourself that this will help you in the long run.
Now people, let’s move on to the hard part.
There are a lot of proven ways to reduce distractions. External distractions do not require deep introspection, vehement thinking, and analysis to be resolved. A simple noise canceling headphone, outdoorsy space with green plants plus a solid desk-chair combo and you can throw external distractions out of the window.
Dealing with internal distractions is where the problem inherently lies. Being burnt out, tired and lazy are psychological phenomena. Solving these issues requires one to deeply introspect, analyze and optimise their environment and strategy to properly deal with these issues.
Some of the popularly known methods to avoid getting distracted are as follows:
- Feynman Technique.
- Blurting Method
- Spaced Repetitions
- Active Recall
- Parent supervision (I know you might not want it but it is extremely effective, believe me)
- Accountability and studying with friends.
Play hard, Grind harder.
Todaloo.
Written by Utkarsh Chaudhary
