CHAPTER 1
Your Demons of Distraction
Bill and his officemates are engaged in teasing banter and hearty laughterover drinks and dinner. The egg rolls and fried wontons taste delicious,despite being rather greasy. Reveling in food, friends, and fun, Billgrabs a cloth napkin and wipes his mouth with gusto. When his friendssuddenly whoop and point, he realizes that he's used his new designersilk tie as his napkin. Oops!
Does this story represent a silly incident or a more serious problem? Bill's expensivecleaning bills attest to his frequent carelessness at social occasions. How much dodistractions like this foster a messy work style and tarnish Bill's professional image—whichcould cost him dearly?
How about you? Have you been embarrassed by similar performance slippages? Ifyou experience work/life distractions that diminish your best efforts, it's time to payattention. You don't want occasional incidents to develop into nasty habits that posesignificant barriers to attaining your work/life goals.
It's time to ask these questions:
• Am I suffering constant and irritating distractions?
• To what degree do distractions lead to inattention, forgetfulness, anddisorganization?
• What are the costs and consequences of distractions at work or home?
• How do distractions undermine my attempts to live a life aligned with mydeepest values?
This chapter addresses these questions and provides self-checks, activities, anddaily logs to identify your demons and their costs and to set preliminary goals.
Define the Consequences of Your Distraction
Charlie Ponte, my dad, built a musical instrument business in midtownManhattan. On one hand, he loved selling, and he enjoyed the camaraderieof other musicians. On the other hand, he was inattentive to managementresponsibilities like signing insurance policies and leases. When theRockefellers bought the block of buildings on Forty-Eighth Street, allthe storeowners who had signed their leases received a million dollars tovacate. Because Mr. Ponte hadn't signed his lease, not only did he not geta million dollars, he suffered a lawsuit because he didn't vacate before theChristmas season sales.
Like Charlie Ponte, many Americans don't complete their important financialresponsibilities. For example, putting off filing their taxes costs Americans a collective$400 million dollars a year in penalties (Steele, 2007).
Financial consequences can be critical but aren't fatal. Yet many stories in thenews report the serious and even deadly results of inattention and distraction. Forexample, pilots' social interaction and inattention appear to contribute to plane crashes(Kavanagh, 2009). Add that to reports about drivers killing themselves (and others)due to distractions like texting or cell phone use while driving.
Wherever inattention and distraction occur, their consequences warrant yourimmediate review. In the chart that follows, check any of the items that apply to you.Be sure to jot down any other consequences that apply.
Self-Check: Negative Consequences of Distractions
Work Life
____ Performance. Allowing performance to falter due to forgetfulness oroverlooked details
____ Organization. Losing and misplacing papers or dealing with constantclutter
____ Planning. Responding reactively rather than proactively to opportunities
____ Communication. Neglecting team or supervisor responsibilities, providingincomplete directions, frequently changing your mind or second-guessingothers
____ Career Path. Struggling on a slow career track or moving from job to job
____ Other. __________________________________________________________________
Personal Life
____ Finance. Incurring unnecessary finance charges, losing invoices, misplacingtax receipts, or overspending
____ Time Management. Arriving late for meetings, procrastinating, or takingtoo long to complete chores
____ Health. Postponing medical and dental checkups, arriving late or missingappointments, or forgetting to comply with medical routines
____ Legal. Ignoring requests for information from tax or insurance agencies,losing or not paying traffic tickets, or not signing important papers, suchas wills, taxes, or leases
____ Stress. Lacking awareness of your emotional needs and vulnerabilities orsuccumbing to needless irritability, frustration, or stress
____ Home Maintenance. Neglecting the upkeep of your car, home, or personalitems or allowing excessive clutter in your closets, attic, garage, and/orbasement
____ Other. _______________________________________________________________
Social Life
____ Personal Relationships. Lacking sensitivity to social cues and not adjustingyour behavior; lacking sensitivity about when to stop teasing or when tobe empathetic
____ Communication. Being inattentive when listening and lax about keepingin touch with others; forgetting to reply to phone calls, correspondence,invitations, or e-mail
____ Commitment. Failing to follow through on obligations and promises,despite your good intentions
____ Stability. Behaving in an absentminded, inconsistent, or unpredictableway due to a loss of focus on your cherished values or goals
____ Responsibility and Respect. Lapsing into disorganization or messinesswithout regard to its effect on others
____ Other: _______________________________________________________________________
When you identify your own negative consequences, you increase the likelihood thatyou'll commit to setting goals and sticking to a plan. To reinforce what you've noticed,play a video in your mind about the role that distraction has played in your life/workin the last few months. Then, for each, briefly list the negative consequences you'veexperienced.
• Work Life ___________________________________________________________________
• Personal Life _______________________________________________________________
• Social Life _________________________________________________________________
Next, ask and answer these core questions:
• Am I suffering constant, irritating distractions?
• To what degree do distractions lead to inattention, forgetfulness, anddisorganization?
• What are the costs and consequences of distractions at work or home?
• How do distractions undermine my attempts to live a life that is aligned withmy deepest values?
What Positive Outcomes Do You Seek?
Jolie, a personal trainer, has identified situations that need her attention.Specifically, she gets distracted while talking to service personnel at banks,restaurants, and stores. During business transactions, she loses receiptsand wastes time balancing her accounts. Consequently, she fails to collectthe reimbursements to which she is entitled. Under Professional Life,she wrote the following goal: "More consistency when doing businessactivities, especially when storing receipts. Take fifteen seconds to put thereceipts in my wallet as soon as they are received."
Follow Jolie's lead. Once you've identified problems and decided to make changes,take these steps:
1. Determine and list the overall positive outcomes you desire.
2. Mull over the items you've checked under each category.
3. Choose goals that will enhance work/life performance, boost profits, andincrease your level of satisfaction.
It's easy to identify lots of areas, but start small and be specific. Select no morethan two items from the following list. For example, if you seek greater accuracy inyour performance at work or home, jot down something like, "Improve addition andcompletion on check registry and deposit slips."
Performance at work or home:
____ Greater accuracy
____ More consistency
____ Better organization
____ Improved attention and memory
____ Other: _______________________
Profitability:
____ Greater productivity
____ Greater financial gain
____ Greater security
____ Other: __________________________
Peacefulness at work or home:
____ Less frustration
____ Less stress
____ More motivation
____ More fun
____ Other: _____________________
The 8 Demons of Distraction
When you feel lazy, crazy, or dumb, it probably means you've encountered a Demonof Distraction. These demons come in a variety of forms. In sometimes insidiousways, one or more demons strike. The result? They wreak havoc on your performance,productivity, and peacefulness. "Know thy enemy" and prepare, so you can avoid theworst of their damage.
All eight Demons of Distraction are summarized here (Markel, 2008). An illustrationof each demon is featured at the beginning of chapters three through ten.
• The Technology Demon prowls day and night. It invites you to get lost ina maze of texting, chatting, surfing, and gaming long after the time spent isappropriate or useful.
• The Others Demon has many faces: coworkers, bosses, significant others, and/or children who believe you should be available twenty-four/seven. Whenyou can't stop interruptions, set boundaries, or say no, you lose numerousopportunities for creativity.
• The Activities Demon attacks when you inappropriately multitask, travel,rush, or face tedious, difficult tasks. You're easy prey for distractions duringemotional events, such as holidays and family gatherings.
• The Spaces Demon lurks where you live, work, or play. Distracted by sights andsounds or wallowing in messy, unpleasant settings, you are prone to feelingoverwhelmed, producing inaccurate work, and working at a slow pace.
• The Stress Demon robs you of the psychic energy you need to pay attention.Internal or external triggers, or a combination of both, activates this demon.Without conscious attention to your stress levels, you can make many mistakesand poor choices.
• The Fatigue Demon saps the energy you need to focus and maintainconcentration. Although you try to deny it, feeling exhausted leaves youspinning your wheels, committing errors, or even causing accidents.
• The Illness/Medication Demon robs you of your vigor and can lead to emotionalups and downs. Your performance can plummet due to poor concentration,memory loss, confusion, insomnia, nausea, or headaches (often side effects ofmedication).
• The Unruly-Mind Demon can have three heads: hyper-focus, racing thoughts,or daydreaming. The more unruly your mind, the less productive you are.
Self-Check: My Demons of Distraction
Directions: Read each statement and check all that apply to you.
____ 1. I text, tweet, play games, or check sport or financial statistics excessively.(Technology Demon)
____ 2. I have a hard time saying no, I'm overcommitted, and I'm interruptedall day. (Others Demon)
____ 3. I feel pressure to multitask, but it doesn't work for me. (ActivitiesDemon)
____ 4. My workspace is so noisy that I have trouble thinking. (Spaces Demon)
____ 5. I lack specific strategies to manage stress, so when I begin to work, Iruminate about problems and pressures. (Stress Demon)
____ 6. I'm frequently tired and find it hard to focus. (Fatigue Demon)
____ 7. I take medications that interfere with my attention and/or memory.(Medication/Illness Demon)
____ 8. Once I start to concentrate, I get lost in the task, and ignore everything—evenwhen I'm not achieving much. (Unruly-Mind Demon: Hyper-focus)
____ 9. I try to finish tasks or chores but frequently find myself daydreaming.(Unruly Mind: Daydreaming)
____ 10. My mind races, and I can't seem to focus on one thing at a time. (UnrulyMind: Racing thoughts)
Assess: Current Distraction Attacks
A distraction attack is a momentary slippage of focus, often producing an amusing,inconsequential result. Perhaps you're aware that technology or other people can messup your ability to concentrate. For example, you're holding a hardboiled egg in onehand and a cell phone in the other. The phone rings. You smack the egg into yourear!
What about factors like fatigue or stress? Dig deep to identify demons like this thatmay be interfering with your performance or peace of mind. To do so, visualize whathappened during the past few days and list the peskiest demons you experienced. Foreach one, describe where you were, what the result was, and how you felt.
• Demon: ________________________________________________________________________________
• Demon: ________________________________________________________________________________
• Demon: ________________________________________________________________________________
More often than you'd like, demons attack en masse. For example, when you feeltired and under pressure, you're more vulnerable to distraction from the Fatigue andStress Demons. You might be especially vulnerable to the Others Demon, which showsup when you fly off the handle rather than ignore your coworker's interruption. Thinkabout your current work/life situations and describe your most lethal combinationof demons:
• Combination 1: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• Combination 2: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once you identify your demons, explore ways these demons can influence yourwork/life.
Assess the Past: Successful and Unsuccessful Experiences
Can you remember life experiences when you dealt both successfully and unsuccessfullywith distractions? By visualizing those occasions, you can more clearly identify whatyou did or didn't do to thwart distractions so they won't interfere with your actionsagain. When you write about previous experiences, you shed light on long-standingtendencies. Usually, it's more motivating to start with the successful experiences.
Your definition of success in doing this varies based on your interests and talents.For example, success is viewed different for a CEO or teacher. Here's an example ofone describing a jazz singer/songwriter:
How could a beginning songwriter beat a racing mind, attain focus, andretain memory of her ideas and melodies? In the past, her thoughts aboutnew songs would disappear faster than her glasses or keys. Now sherecords her creative ideas on her cell phone. Since setting this up, thenumber of songs she's created has increased significantly.
This aspiring musician defines success as finding an aid against distraction. Anaccountant, on the other hand, might define success as getting away from officedistractions by going to a library to complete an annual report.
The songwriter, like many people, likes to talk about her experiences. Othersprefer to write about their experiences in a journal; still others choose to use a chart toorganize their thoughts. For example, suppose the songwriter jotted notes on a chartabout the lessons she learned. It would look like this:
To use a chart like this productively, remember or visualize times when yousuccessfully warded off distractions, and then answer the questions. No need toinclude all the stages of your life; select the most memorable ones. After writing abouta successful experience on the chart, you'll tackle an unsuccessful one next.
The goal is to gain an historical perspective. Look for the positive patterns youused over time to avoid or defeat distractions. Then you can remember and repeatthem.
Once you're aware of your successful distraction-defeating experiences, consideryour less successful experiences and look for patterns in them. For example, Rogerjotted down notes in chart form because for him, that was quick and easy. Roger'sunsuccessful experience shows the disruption caused by a combined attack of theActivities and the Stress Demons before his vacation.
Remember or visualize times in your life when you didn't successfully ward offdistractions; write them in the following chart. Jog your memory by addressing suchquestions as:
• What mistakes have occurred due to distractions during travel or whilerushing?
• What frustrating experience could have been avoided if I was paying morecareful attention to what I was doing?
Review your successful and unsuccessful past distraction-related experiences,and identify patterns or trends. Take the time to discuss your insights with others.Consider addressing such questions as:
• What patterns emerge?
• Where and when have I been most vulnerable to distractions?
• When and where have I been most successful in my attempts to reducedistractions?
• How do distractions undermine my attempts to live a life aligned with my deepestvalues?
Assess the Present: Keep a Distraction Attack Log
Keep a log of the demons that attack you. For at least three days, preferably longer,record the specifics: where, when, and for how long each distraction attack lasts.Describe how you felt during and after such attacks, and list consequences of thedistraction attacks.
