How to Reduce Distractions and Increase Focus

A guide to becoming more productive without trying too hard.

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

We all want to pursue goals. Like spending more time with family, performing better at work, and learning a new language.

To achieve them, we try various things to maximize our focus. We watch motivational videos, experiment with productivity strategies, invest in courses and coaches, and so on.

But no matter how hard we try, we cannot sharpen our focus if we don’t cut back on one aspect that always gets in the way: distraction.

It’s like trying to improve your car’s performance. You can plant a bigger engine and gearbox. But it’ll still sputter and stall if you keep filling the tank with low-quality fuel.

Distractions are the equivalent of low-quality fuel in our lives. Author Scott H. Young calls this the ‘low-quality leisure trap.’ Instead of pursuing our goals, we binge on social media and Netflix until the day ends. This limits our ability to get into a state of flow, which is necessary if we want to make meaningful progress at anything.

What I’m getting at is that we’d be much more focused and productive if we simply reduced our distractions drastically.

Why do we get distracted often?