Those who work from home may not be distracted by colleagues, but they still have to contend with the pings and rings of phone calls, emails, and social media alerts. Some 41% said they were distracted by household chores and another 30% identified children and pets as their top attention busters. While it sounds exhausting, Eoin Whelan, a professor of business analytics and society at the University of Galway, argues that we have evolved to be distractible. “Humans have always found it hard to concentrate on any one thing for too long,” he says. “We may be blaming smartphones and social media now, but if we’re honest and think back to when we were at school, most of us will remember having had difficulty concentrating at times.” He believes this may even be a good thing: “When we lived on the Savannah, a sudden noise in the trees drew our attention to the potential presence of food or a sabre-toothed tiger. Our focus being drawn to either of those things in that scenario would have helped our survival chances.” Context is everything Gillian Murphy is a senior lecturer in applied psychology at University College Cork, where she leads the Everyday Cognition Lab. She believes there are benefits to being distractible — but context matters. “It all depends on how we look at it and what our goals are at any given moment,” she says. “What you might call being distracted in one context is vigilant in another. Having your attention diverted from your work because your colleagues are talking isn’t the same as your attention being grabbed by an unusual noise when you’re a security guard.” In a world where we are constantly urged to concentrate on work to be more productive, she thinks we often forget that we are humans, not robots. “There will always be times when we are prone to distraction,” she says. “We might be tired or ruminating on the argument we had with our other half. Then there will be times when we’ll be like kids playing video games, so consumed in what we’re doing that we are completely unaware of what’s going on around us. So many factors affect our ability to focus, and we’re never in total control of it.” However, this is not to say we shouldn’t try overcome distractions. It’s vital that we do so if we want to get any work done. Some people might suggest multitasking as a strategy. They would be mistaken, according to Murphy: “We’re not physically capable of focusing on two things at once. "Our attention is like a spotlight. When we pay attention to one thing, we don’t pay attention to the things around it. When we multitask, we don’t acquire two spotlights” “Instead, we zigzag our focus between tasks and there’s a cognitive cost to this. It slows our brain, causes fatigue, negatively impacts performance, and makes us more likely to make mistakes.” Rather than trying and failing to multitask, Whelan recommends doing one task at a time. “If you complete one before moving onto the next, you’re more likely to do your work to a higher standard,” he says. “It’s less stressful and the satisfaction you get from completing one task is likely to motivate you to do the next.” In the Codex survey, 57% reported that taking regular breaks helped them maintain focus. Whelan advises his students to do the same. “College lectures can be two hours long and no one can pay attention for that length of time,” he says. “So every 15 minutes or so, I give students a two-minute break. They can chat, go on social media, or whatever they need to give their brain a rest.” He thinks most of us would benefit from this approach. “Trying to focus all day long is exhausting. It’s better to structure our days around moments where we give our minds a rest.” Murphy adds a caveat to Whelan’s advice: “Breaks work well for those who struggle to stay on task but there are people who prefer to work in long blocks. These are generally people for whom the hard bit is initially getting on task. Taking regular breaks could be the worst thing for them as they’d have to go through all that effort again to refocus.” Willpower works Many people find that rewards can incentivise concentration. “Just look at how video games work,” says Murphy. “Rewards come thick and fast at the start and become fewer but more significant the further you get into the game. “While a spreadsheet can probably never compare with a video game, rewards can help keep us on track. At the end of term, when I have hundreds of scripts to correct, I find it helps to promise myself an episode of my favourite show for every 20 I get done.” Like the survey respondents, Whelan identifies smartphones and devices as some of the prime culprits that distract us from work. However, he reminds us that we do have the power to resist them: “Whether we leave them in another room or turn them off entirely, switch off notifications or install apps that block us from using social media at certain times of the day, we can minimise the distraction of our phones.”. Just as there are many different ways to limit the lure of our smartphones, Murphy points out that there are many tactics we can use to help us focus. “Different strategies work for different people,” she says. “Some people can’t work without wearing noise-cancelling headphones while others swear by the pomodoro technique, which involves working for 25 minutes and taking a break for five. My advice is to experiment to find what works for you.” If nothing works, there may be an underlying issue like attention deficit disorder at play. If you believe you have a genuine inability to pay attention and it’s impacting your life negatively, she urges you to talk to your GP. “Attention deficit disorder was underdiagnosed in the past, and a lot of people are now getting diagnosed and treated in adulthood,” she says. One hurdle at a time Niall O’Carroll is another person who believes there are many ways of overcoming distraction. He has spent decades teaching athletes how to focus and now does the same with corporate executives through his business NiallOC.ie Like Whelan, one of his big tips is concentrating on one thing at a time. “I often think of the strategy we used to help the 100-metre hurdler Jasmine Camacho Quinn win gold in the Olympics,” he says. “She ignored everything other than her breathing and relaxation techniques to allow her to clear one hurdle after another. “You can only ever clear one hurdle at a time, and sprinters who stay relaxed run faster and clear hurdles quicker. “Our breathing is so important. It slows our heart rate and helps us overcome anxiety so that we can focus on the next step we need to take.” Another tactic for countering distraction is simply acknowledging it. O’Carroll believes naming what’s distracting you and asking if it deserves your attention can help reset your focus. “From notifications on our phones and personal problems with loved ones to internal battles we have with our inner voice telling us we’re not up to the job we’re trying to do; the world is constantly distracting us,” says O’Carroll. “But there are ways we can manage this. We just have to find the techniques that work best for us.” O’Carroll has his own strategy for overcoming distractions. “I reset, refocus, and go,” he says. “For me, that means slowing my breathing to take away any stress and naming the distraction. If I’ve got time, I might get up for five minutes and go for a walk. “We shouldn’t let distractions get in the way of us being the best version of ourselves.”