Distraction is a design problem

Your environment is winning. Change the environment.

The short version: try one today

• Put the phone out of arm’s reach.
• Keep a “later” notepad for stray thoughts.
• Face a wall or wear headphones.

Need to focus right now? Start a body doubling session in Priori and work alongside someone. (We make it. It's free to download.)

Your phone was built by large teams of very clever people whose whole job is to get you to pick it up. You, meanwhile, are trying to resist it with willpower and a half-eaten cereal bar. No wonder you keep losing.

ADHD distraction is often treated as a personal failing, something to fix by trying harder. It makes more sense to treat it as a design problem. Right now your environment is set up to win. So change the environment, and let the room do some of the work your self-control has been doing alone.

Why trying harder runs out

With ADHD, attention tends to go to whatever is most interesting or most immediate. A buzzing phone, a flatmate laughing in the hall, an open tab with a half-read article. Each one is a small tug, and resisting each tug uses up effort.

You can resist for a while. Then you get tired, or bored, or hungry, and the next tug wins. This is the predictable result of asking a brain that struggles with filtering to filter all day.

The fix is fewer tugs. Every distraction you remove before you start is one you never have to fight.

Design fixes for ADHD distraction

Start with the phone, because it is the big one. Put it out of arm's reach. Across the room is good. Another room is better. The point is to add a few seconds and a bit of effort between the urge and the scroll. Often that small gap is enough for the urge to pass.

Next, deal with what you can see and hear.

• Face a wall instead of the room or the window.
• Wear headphones, with or without sound. They also tell other people you are busy.
• Clear your desk of anything unrelated to this task. The post can live on the bed for an hour.
• Close the tabs you do not need. Bookmark them if you are scared of losing them.

None of this has to look nice. A desk shoved against a blank wall is ugly and effective. If your distractions mostly come from a job, work distractions covers messages, open-plan offices and tab overload.

The 'later' notepad for distractions from inside

Some of the worst interruptions come from your own head. You are halfway through a paragraph and suddenly remember you need to book a smear test, reply to a group chat about Saturday and find out whether hedgehogs can swim.

These thoughts feel urgent because your brain does not trust itself to remember them. So it insists you act now.

Keep a notepad next to you labelled 'later'. When a stray thought turns up, write it down in three or four words and go back to work. You have told your brain the thought is safe. It can stop shouting. At the end of the session, go through the list. Most items take two minutes or turn out not to matter. This is one of several ways to put your brain outside your head.

When the setup fails

It will, some days. You will fetch the phone from the other room without really deciding to. You will end up reading about hedgehogs anyway.

Treat it as information about the design. Ask what the gap was. If the phone came back, maybe it needs to go in a bag in the hallway. If the flat was too noisy, maybe Tuesday afternoons belong to the library. If you were exhausted, no layout was going to save that session, and the kind move is a break.

Many women with ADHD have spent years blaming themselves for this. Adjusting the room is a lot more productive than another round of self-criticism, and considerably less miserable.

Quick questions

Why am I so easily distracted with ADHD?

ADHD affects how the brain filters and prioritises what to pay attention to, so new or interesting things pull harder than they do for other people. Reducing what is around you to pull at your attention usually helps more than trying to resist it.

How do I stop getting distracted by my phone?

Add distance and friction. Put it in another room or a bag while you work, and keep a notepad nearby so you have somewhere to park the thoughts that would otherwise send you to look something up.