How to stop getting distracted while you work

You open your laptop to finish a report. A notification slides in. You "just quickly" answer it, glance at another tab, and suddenly half an hour has passed. Getting distracted isn't a character flaw. Our tools are designed to grab attention, and our brains are happy to let them. The good news is that a few small changes to your setup do most of the work.

Why distractions cost more than they seem

An interruption doesn't just take the 30 seconds you spend on it. It also costs the time and energy to get back into the work.

• Attention residue. After switching away from an unfinished task, part of your mind stays on it, and you perform worse on the next task (Leroy, 2009).
• More stress. In a study of interrupted work, people compensated by working faster, but reported more stress, frustration and time pressure (Mark, Gudith & Klocke, 2008).
• Your phone pulls even when it's quiet. One study found that people did worse on tests of working memory and reasoning when their phone lay face down on the desk with the sound off than when it was in another room (Ward et al., 2017). Not every study has found this, and a 2024 meta-analysis concluded that the effect is smaller than first thought and only clear for working memory (Parry, 2024). Still, putting the phone away costs you nothing.

Two kinds of distractions

It helps to split distractions into two groups, as Francesco Cirillo does in the Pomodoro Technique:

• External distractions come from outside: notifications, messages, colleagues, noise.
• Internal distractions come from you: the urge to check something, a sudden idea, a worry, a to-do you just remembered.

External distractions are best handled by changing your environment. Internal ones are best handled by giving them a place to go.

Seven ways to protect your focus

1. Decide on one task before you start. Vague tasks invite distraction because your brain keeps looking for something more concrete to do. Write the task down: "Draft section 2 of the report."
2. Put your phone in another room, or at least out of sight. Out of sight really does mean out of mind.
3. Turn on Do Not Disturb on your computer and phone for the length of the session. Most tools let you schedule this.
4. Close everything you don't need. Close the email tab, the chat app and the news site. If you need a tab for the task, keep that one only.
5. Keep a distraction list. When a thought pops up ("check the train times"), write it down and go back to work. It's not ignored, just postponed until the break. This one habit tames most internal distractions.
6. Make an if-then plan. For example: "If I feel the urge to check my phone, then I'll take one deep breath and write the urge on my list." Research on implementation intentions shows that planning your response in advance makes it more likely you'll follow through (Gollwitzer, 1999).
7. Work in timed sessions. It's much easier to ignore something for 25 minutes than "for the rest of the day". When the timer rings, you get a break, and that's when you can check everything you parked.

What about colleagues and family?

Tell people when you're in a focus session, or use a visible signal like headphones. Many teams agree on "quiet hours" in the morning. If someone interrupts you anyway, it's fine to say "Can I get back to you in 15 minutes?" Most things can wait that long, and it protects both of you.

When you get distracted anyway

You will, and that's normal. The goal isn't zero distractions. It's noticing faster and coming back sooner. When you catch yourself in the wrong tab, don't scold yourself. Just close it and go back to the task. Every return is practice.

Sources

• Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168–181.
• Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. Proceedings of CHI 2008, 107–110.
• Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154.
• Parry, D. A. (2024). Does the mere presence of a smartphone impact cognitive performance? A meta-analysis of the "brain drain effect". Media Psychology, 27(5), 737–762.
• Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.