Distractions have sadly become synonymous with the state of our modern world.

You hear so often about our declining attention spans, the social media algorithms dictating our information consumption, and the overwhelming power of modern smartphones.

I think there’s an even greater problem that plagues our modern society. It’s one that we as individuals create for ourselves. It drains our pockets of time and turns us into more miserable human beings.

The problem? Productive distractions.

What are productive distractions?

Please don’t be fooled by the word productive in their name. They aren’t really productive at all. They’re dangerously distracting.

Productive distractions are an even greater problem than what you’d typically associate with distractions. They’re not the social media feeds that lure you in to scroll for hours or the enticing video games that teleport you to distant worlds.

Those distractions are so obvious. How could you not notice them? Productive distractions are the opposite.

They’re subtle and silent. They invade your work time, family time, and personal time. They seem like reasonable things to do in any moment, but that’s just a disguise.

The first step to solving any problem is to become aware of it.

Here are two ways you can recognise the productive distractions lurking in your life and also two simple methods to deal with them.

Sign 1 – The Right Thing At The Wrong Time

There are many different types of productive distractions. However, they all share one thing in common: they are the right things at the wrong times.

Take the example of writing an article for your blog. Instead of writing the first few words when it’s time to start doing so, you might decide to do more research on the topic instead.

An hour passes and somehow all the time you’ve dedicated to writing has been consumed by needless research. It wasn’t a poor use of your time but it was poor timing.

Situations like this might happen to you too. You might find yourself reading online about how to start doing something instead of just starting it when you decide it’s time to. It’s a clever waste of time that feels like real work.

The productive distractions themselves aren’t destructive. It’s the situation they’re placed in that makes them that way.

They easily fool your brain into thinking you’re making more progress than you really are. They gradually overtake doing stuff as the priority.

Sign 2 – Look At Your Bad Habits

Productive distractions seem like the right things to do so they are easily repeated and can slide into your routine without you even realising. This allows them to morph into new habits.

Examine your own routine and identify the things you do that fit that description of the right thing at the wrong time. Think carefully because they’re hard to notice.

About two months ago, I was obsessed with playing the puzzle game Wordle where you try to guess a 5-letter word with 6 tries. I formed the habit of playing the game in the morning and I would often be guessing the word instead of making a plan for my day (a far more important activity).

I used the excuse that it was helping to sharpen my brain so I would perform at a high level each day. That was true, but also a good excuse.

Bad habits, once formed, are hard to get rid of. Notice any strange patterns in your own routine. And ask yourself these questions:

What areas in my life have I been falling short in? What have I been doing to move forward in those areas?

You might find that instead of doing the things necessary to move forward in those areas, you’ve been unconsciously engaging in productive distractions instead. Your brain has been fooled.

What can we do then?

You’ll be happy to know that the situation isn’t hopeless. I have two simple strategies which will help you deal with the problem of productive distractions in your own life.

The first is to be ruthless with your routine.

Being ruthless here is about identifying the productive distractions in your life and then distinguishing between them.

Some of them are just a case of a good thing being done at the wrong time. Others can’t even be considered productive in any way; they do nothing to help you. What helps you and what doesn’t depends on your current goals in life. Discard the ones that don’t help you from your daily routine and show no mercy.

The second strategy is to reschedule.

Some of those productive distractions might be genuinely helpful rather than harmful.

The simple solution for these ones is to move them to a better time in the day when they don’t interfere with your work. For example, don’t watch educational YouTube videos while working on an important project. Instead, allocate a specific time for them; you’ll be able to enjoy learning guilt-free as well.

It’s important to commit fully to doing something when it’s time to do it. Studies show it takes about 23 minutes to regain focus after being distracted.

Also, just trying to resist the urge to distract yourself won’t help you. The urge will just persist. Moving the thought to a specific time in the future by rescheduling will.

Your life without productive distractions

If you can be ruthless with your routine and reschedule the helpful productive distractions, you can become a master of your own time. You’ll have much more time to master as well!

It’s hard to let go of these distractions because they can help to move you in the right direction and they also become habits which are hard to break.

However, they also disrupt your focus, the most important skill you have in the modern world, and your defence against all the distractions the world throws at you.

By eliminating just one productive distraction from your life today, you’ll be a step closer to reclaiming control over your life.

So then, which productive distraction will you eliminate or reschedule?