A distracting article

Image credit: freepik.com

I have been meaning to write this article for some days now since JonicaBradley posted it, but I just kept postponing (gee, I wonder why).

Well, I finally got motivated to write on it today after seeing several entries by other persons. Let me officially welcome you to my entry for the prompt titled distractions, as part of the weekly prompts by @JonicaBradley .

Hold on, I think something interesting is going on in WhatsApp.

I'm back. I just quickly went out to check up on things in some WhatsApp groups. A guy needed advice on what phone to buy at a range of $100 to $120. I told him to go for Nokia, but he is thinking about Samsung.

I don't think he will get a good Samsung phone at that price range, he might end up buying a Samsung phone with lots of bugs. I mean, first off he might get something of 2GB ram, and the...

Hold on, I think I'm going off track. What was I talking about again? Oh, that's right, distractions.

What easily distracts you?

For me, I found out that the one thing that easily distracts me is whatsApp. I can't go a minute without checking on my whatsapp, and the funny thing is I know I'm just trying to distract myself.

I sniff around WhatsApp groups looking for an argument I can get into. I love arguing online and many people know I can't easily be defeated when it comes to arguments. I could spend hours just arguing about a single topic, all while I have something important to do.

I knew whatsapp was gonna be a problem when I started learning programming, so I sacrificed it by freezing the app. I ghosted everyone without warning and I only openee whatsApp to get important information from my class group chat.

Did staying away from whatsapp help during my learning period? It did! My programming courses became my new whatsapp as I'm always on Udemy or YouTube learning about web development.

After about a month of doing that, I totally got over whatsApp and I saw it as a very big distraction. If I didn't freeze my WhatsApp, here is how things would have been.

While watching a tutorial on YouTube, a whatsapp notification comes in and I click on it. It turns out it's a serious argument in one of the groups I belong to, I notice some wacky points and say to myself "these people needs to be schooled"

I enter the group, drop my point and someone else counters it with an even more stupid point. I get angry, I open Google and bombard the group with facts to support my point. Someone else does the same, and I fire back with another round of facts. And the cycle continues till I start feeling sleepy

"Oh, why am I feeling sleepy? Wow, it's already midnight. Damn! I haven't finished watching that tutorial, well I can just continue with it tomorrow" Then tomorrow, another argument comes up and the cycle continues.

I knew that was what will happen because it happened during my graphics design era, I wasn't focused because of whatsapp. I had to terminate whatsapp so I can focus on learning and it worked!

I'm getting another itch to check my whatsapp. I will be back in a jiffy.

Alright, I'm back, nothing interesting seems to be going on. Looks like I'm still being distracted by whatsapp right? Well, I have paused my programming journey for now because of school, so I'm back in a relationship with whatsapp (should I now call school a distraction?).

I discovered that we get distracted if we are not working on a task with all our minds and don't really have much passion for it. I noticed that while learning programming, I hardly get distracted and I spent as much as 12 hours every day doing it.

I could easily have unfrozen my whatsapp at any time but I didn't, because I was enjoying programming and that itself is already a distraction; distracting me from opening whatsapp.

A distraction can distract another distraction? Wow, Looks like a mouthful. Imagine this scenario;

You're talking with your friends and a very beautiful lady walks by and you start looking at her, which distracts you from the conversation with your friends, and then an even more beautiful lady walks past you, and your eyes instantly follow her, taking your focus from the first lady, and boom! A distraction has been distracted 😂 (Happens to me sometimes).

Do you know you can be distracted by hunger? Allow me to explain with a question; can you read while hungry? I definitely can't do that, I will just be thinking about food, and that is a big distraction.

One of the things I can do while hungry is to watch movies, and it has to be a comedy movie so I can distract the hunger with laughter. Horror movies work too, to scare the hunger away.

Are distractions and procrastination connected?

Yes, they are. For you to procrastinate on a task simply means you have found something to take your mind off it.

In one of my articles (Will I still procastinate after this?), I talked about procrastination and how I ended up doing an assignment on the deadline. I could have done that assignment on the very day it was given out, but what happened?

I roamed around readcash and noisecash until the two weeks deadline for the assignment passed and it was time to submit. Wouldn't you call that a distraction?

Distraction by noise

I think this is the mother of all distractions, the undisputed last born of pollution; noise pollution. Everyone gets distracted by noise, especially when you're doing something that requires total focus, like reading.

Noise is a big issue in the university which makes some students go to the library to read because it's very quiet. I don't easily get distracted by noise and I know how to zone out and focus on my task, but I get distracted by friends discussing something I'm interested in.

Image credit: freepik.com

As someone that loves using music to read, I can get distracted if two people are arguing close to me. I will be reading my book but what is going into my brain is the conversation going on around me

My usual solution to such distraction is to bring out my headphones, put on music and increase the volume to the highest. In that state, I sometimes don't even hear the lyrics of the song as I have become immersed in the book I'm reading.

Conclusion

Distractions are everywhere and are a part of our lives, you can't eradicate them but you can reduce them. You might think distractions can be totally removed but do you know that your thoughts can distract you?

You should learn to know when you're being distracted and find means to keep yourself focused. Who knows, you might be getting distracted by this article while you have something very important to do 😉

Thanks for reading 💗💗💗

September 16, 2021

You can be a part of this prompt as well, all you just have to do is to follow the rules.