The opposite of Distraction is not Focus – it is Traction

For all of us who have kids in the teenager-age, we know by hart what the attention economy means. The surprising part is not that our youngsters fall prey for the thousands of smart engineers that have in their job description to create apps and algorithms that keep the user on the device only to harvest their attention to sell to advertisers. No, what bothers me is what is NOT happening when their attention is glued to a 6-inch screen several hours a day.

The attention economy.

The attention economy refers to the idea that attention has become a scarce and valuable resource in today's information-rich society.?The term was honed way before internet in 1971 by the?psychologist and economist Herbert A?Simon in his book "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World".?The attention economy is based on the premise that people have limited cognitive resources?(we can also call it bandwidth)?and are easily distracted by stimuli that are visually and emotionally appealing. As a result, companies that are able to create compelling content that capture people's attention are more likely to succeed in today's digital marketplace.?Many of the critics of the attention economy point to the fact that our stone-age brain is not prepared for the constant stimuli that TikTok and other apps are bombarding us with. It creates attention fatigue and ultimately depression and burnout. However, my concern here is not overstimulation. It is what these digital drugs squeeze out.

Attention and distraction

The better the apps are to attract the user’s attention, the more they also distract the user from other stuff. There is always an opportunity cost involved to everything we do (opportunity cost refers to the cost of choosing one option over another, in terms of the benefits foregone from the option not chosen). In other words, one hour spent on TikTok is one hour less spent on something else. Attention to something is always distraction from something else. But the attraction that the app-creators have built is impossible to withstand. It is nothing short of a drug.??

The computer science professor from MIT, Cal Newport argues in his book?"Deep Work" that in today's age of constant distraction, the ability to concentrate deeply on cognitively demanding tasks is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. Newport advocates for the practice of "deep work", defined as the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task, to produce better results in less time. He proclaims, and I agree, that those of you who can master your focus will stand out from the crowd on tomorrows job market. However, there is a sense of resistance, “headwind” or unachievableility over Newport’s description of focus. It seems a bit like dental floss i.e. it is easy to talk about its value and benefits but evasive and unattainable when you try in practice. But what if the opposite of distraction is not focus?

The opposite of distraction is not focus

The author and Stanford MBA graduate?Nir Eyal?introduces the concept of "traction" as the opposite of distraction in his book "Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life". Eyal argues that?

the opposite of distraction is not simply focus or concentration, but rather a specific type of focused activity that is aligned with our values and goals. He defines "traction" as any action that moves us closer to what we want, whether that be personal or professional goals, relationships, health, or any other area of life.?If distraction is something that pulls us away from what we want (like hours swiping om Instagram), traction work like a magnet that pulls us towards what we really want.

Instead of just ”keep yourself in a tight leash” and direct your focus to a certain task, Eyal say that you should first?identify?your?core values and goals, and then structure?your?time and activities around them.?By doing so,?you?can ensure that?you?are spending?your?time and energy on activities that are meaningful and fulfilling, rather than allowing?yourself?to be pulled in different directions by external distractions.?If you do that, you will become indistractable.

Inspired by Eyal, we should all ask ourselves what our goals are and what time-blocks in our week, and which activities are are moving us closer to that goal. At the same time, be observant on what in your week calendar that distracts you i.e. pulls you away from where you want to be.

Distraction in our organizations

Both Newport and Eyal focus on the hazards of distraction on a personal plane, but it is rather easy to transfer the same thinking to our organizations. Following the recipe of Eyal, we should first ask ourselves what the goal and purpose of our company is. My company, and I guess most companies, exist to solve a problem, or meet a need of our customers. Or in other words,

we exist to solve the pain points of our customers.They are ultimately the ones that pay our salaries.

Unfortunately, many activities that arise in big organizations are hard to relate to “meeting the needs of our customers”. I think of compliance reporting, endless multi layered decision structures, time reporting and internal communication initiatives. Some say they are needed in a big firm, but with Eyal’s definition, they are distractions. In contrast,

small cross functional groups of engineers working together on a customer problem or towards a customer value would be considered as “traction”.

Other examples are workers assembling trucks on assembly line, mechanics repairing a buss as well as support personnel taking assistant calls from drivers that have a break down on the roadside.??That is where “the rubber meets the asphalt” and value is created in my company. That is true traction.

My encouragement for the coming week would be to ask yourself, what in your calendar that is “distraction” and what is “traction” and kill one “distraction-activity” in favor of planning one “traction-activity”.