When cell phones and multi-threaded operating systems went into wide use, we saw a rise in multitasking that made people less productive. Suddenly, there was a constant temptation to switch away from one task (say, writing an article like this one) to another (say, checking on emails that may have come in over the last couple of . . . hold on . . . okay, I’m back . . . where was I?).
In addition, we became so used to switching from one task to another that even if we shut off other programs on the computer and put the phone away, our brains still interrupted us to suggest that we ought to be doing something else right about now.
This temptation has only gotten worse in the work-from-home era. Chances are, you’re working alone in a room, so there is nobody around to prevent you from doomscrolling or flipping away from one task to another. In addition, while there’s strong social pressure to avoid checking emails and texts during an in-person meeting, it has become commonplace for people to be doing several other things during a Zoom meeting. Indeed, in many meetings, there is a shadow text thread going on that virtually requires you to multitask throughout.
As a result, you may find it harder than ever to pay attention to the task at hand. Your brain may try to derail your train of thought several times a minute with an invitation to do something else. So, what can you do to keep your mind from wandering off task?
A little mindfulness
Over the past decade, mindfulness techniques have been touted as the cure for all kinds of things from stress to creative blocks. While it won’t fix everything, mindfulness techniques are particularly effective at helping you with mind wandering and intrusive thoughts. What a lot of mindfulness techniques are designed to do is to help you to recognize thought patterns. That will enable you to notice when one you are working on a project and you start thinking about something else.
The value of noticing these thought patterns is that you can intervene. Rather than allowing yourself to follow the track started by the thought that interrupted you, you can refocus yourself on the task you were working on before. In that way, you minimize the influence of these extraneous thoughts.
Learn a new response
Part of the problem with thoughts that break in and suggest that you leave the task you’re doing and do something else (like checking your phone or email) is that you then associate those thoughts with the action of doing something else. Over time, that leads to a chain of habits in which you habitually think of other things you should be doing, which leads you to actually engage in that behavior.