The Art of Distraction

A flighty mind might be going somewhere.

It is incontrovertible that sometimes things get done better when you’re doing something else.
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Some interruptions are worth having if they create a space for something to work in the fertile unconscious. Indeed, some distractions are more than useful; they might be more like realizations and can be as informative and multilayered as dreams.
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There might be more to our distractions than we realized we knew. We might need to be irresponsible. But to follow a distraction requires independence and disobedience; there will be anxiety in not completing something, in looking away, or in not looking where others prefer you to.
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In the end, a person requires a method. He must be able to distinguish between creative and destructive distractions by the sort of taste they leave, whether they feel depleting or fulfilling.

Hanif Kureishi in the New York Times.

The Benefits of Boredom

When you’re doing nothing, you’re just getting started:

It’s easy to underestimate boredom.

However, boredom and its synonyms can also become a crucial tool of creativity. When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering.

In recent years neuroscience has dramatically revised our views of mind-wandering. [P]eople who consistently engage in more mind-wandering score significantly higher on various measures of creativity.

From the ever-fascinating Jonah Lehrer's essay, The Importance of Mind-Wandering in Wired.

On the Art of Puttering

A moment of calm reflection:

We are a driven people… We keep lists; we crowd our schedules; we look for more efficient ways to organize ourselves.

But every now and then there comes a day for puttering. No one intends to putter. You simply discover, in a brief moment of self-awareness, that you have been puttering…

Your attention is diverted almost immediately and then diverted again. You move through the morning with a calm, oblivious focus, taking on tasks — incidental ones — in the order they present themselves, which is to say no order at all.

Puttering is small-scale, stream-of-consciousness problem-solving.

Excerpted from a New York Times editorial, June 24, 2011.

In Praise of Distraction

Trust your inclination:

[T]here’s no doubt that the Internet has made it much easier—and more entertaining—to slack off at the office. … [P]lenty of new research suggests that forcing Internet-addicted employees to go cold turkey may make them less productive, not more. … [G]iving people some respite from difficult tasks, along with the chance to let their minds wander, will make them more productive.

James Surowiecki in the New Yorker.

The Art of Productive Procrastination

Don’t let what you should be doing keep you from what you really should be doing:

I am rarely, if ever, doing what I should be doing. … I gave up on trying to do exactly what I was meant to be doing in favor of always doing something. … I’ve always found that it’s useful to have something else to be doing when you’re too burnt out to face the next thing on your list.

From Saul Griffith in MAKE Magazine.

Making a place for serendipity

Planning can be an obstacle to opportunity:

Serendipity and luck are by their very nature unpredictable, and therefore not part of any good plan. When something unexpected happens, things are no longer “going according to plan”, and there is a tendency to view the unexpected event either as a distraction, or as a frustrating obstacle to success.

The difference between a life full of frustrating obstacles, and a life full of serendipity, is largely a matter of interpretation.

From Serendipity finds you by Paul Buchheit

Daydreaming’s Time Frame

Your brain is working even when it’s not.

If creative insights are the products of daydreaming, could it be that they are the purpose of daydreaming? In that case, the seemingly aimless meanderings of our minds would, in fact, be goal-directed. Schooler agrees, but with a caveat: “It’s important to distinguish between the goals of the moment and more long-term goals,” he explains. “Daydreaming is typically not in the service of the goals of the moment; in fact it works against the goals of the moment. But at the same time, it likely is driven by more distant goals.”

From: Distraction – Psychology Today, March/April 2009