How do you personally deal with distractions?
The fact is: we all have procrastination tendencies. Just as we find ways of diverting ourselves away from work. Just as the internet is a vast endless theatre of information and distraction. I gave a series of talks last week en français in Guadeloupe at two lycées and two colleges. And I made the point that everyone should try to read a newspaper at least once a week, and should have a cellphone blackout period for several hours every day. I sense I sounded like an old fogey - railing on about the dangers of distraction. But the truth is: we are all too connected, all too obsessed with screens, all trying to stay on top of our voluminous emails or texts or Instagram accounts or Facebook posts or countless other distractions.
But even before cyberspace we found other ways of sidestepping that which we should be focusing. Just as alleged purveyors of higher cognitive whatever - think certain right wing politicians or cult leaders - are often lauded for having a near-mystical ability to disdain distraction and concentrate with absolute crystalline intensity of the matter in hand. I’m always deeply suspicious of people who wear their super powers on their sleeves. Just as I also believe: we’re all desperately human and weak. And we all want to be deflected away from the work we know we have to get done. I’m hardly a procrastinator - but I can easily sneak a look at the upcoming concert programme at the Wigmore Hall in London or the films playing this week at the Babylon Kino in Mitte (my preferred cinephile spot in Berlin). I always do make the quota of words - because I am relentless. And I make bargains with myself. ‘Get two hours of writing done and then you can turn your phone back on for fifteen minutes...’
Life indeed is an endless negotiation... with yourself.
But even before cyberspace we found other ways of sidestepping that which we should be focusing. Just as alleged purveyors of higher cognitive whatever - think certain right wing politicians or cult leaders - are often lauded for having a near-mystical ability to disdain distraction and concentrate with absolute crystalline intensity of the matter in hand. I’m always deeply suspicious of people who wear their super powers on their sleeves. Just as I also believe: we’re all desperately human and weak. And we all want to be deflected away from the work we know we have to get done. I’m hardly a procrastinator - but I can easily sneak a look at the upcoming concert programme at the Wigmore Hall in London or the films playing this week at the Babylon Kino in Mitte (my preferred cinephile spot in Berlin). I always do make the quota of words - because I am relentless. And I make bargains with myself. ‘Get two hours of writing done and then you can turn your phone back on for fifteen minutes...’
Life indeed is an endless negotiation... with yourself.
