New Pathways – Experiences with Distraction: Part 4

By Gale Long, guest blogger

Learning – I discovered that I spend large amounts of time in distractions and often don’t even know it. It occurred to me that I was so completely and varyingly distracted that I wasn’t even conscious of it.

I think I have very cleverly learned to use distraction for a variety of reasons. They allow me to escape from pressing and/or distasteful tasks. They allow me to rest and gain distance from tasks. They sometimes lead to delightful discoveries (just often enough it seems to keep me chasing them).

Conclusions

Bringing my thinking patterns into awareness is valuable. Naming my distractions gives me more choices regarding how I live with them. I’ve built most of my mental pathways. I can build new, more effective thought patterns if I’m willing to invest the time and the attention.

Recipe

• Catch distractions at the time they interrupt.
• Keep a log.
• Categorize and construct countermeasures.
• Check for improvement.
• Repeat as needed.
• Use the recovered effectiveness (time and energy) to move on to new challenges.