“The Opposite of Distraction is Traction.”

The visual from the work of Nir Eyal clearly shows that distractions are actions that move us away from what we really want.  Traction will involve actions that move us toward what we really want.

I see children in my practice on a daily basis that get distracted all the time as they do not have traction. They lack clear goals, do not plan or prioritize, procrastinate, do not use their home work diaries, time planners or deadline lists, etc.  Many adults have similar problems.

A study about ‘Deadlines, Choice and Procrastination’ (as discussed in The Science of Learning) indicates that students are poor at predicting how long a task will take and will often underestimate the time needed to complete it.  As procrastination is such a huge problem (75% of students consider themselves procrastinators), it appears that externally imposed deadlines enhance performance more than self-imposed deadlines.  Short, regular deadlines also lead to better results, as the further away an event is, the less impact it has on people’s decisions. Parents and educators can therefor play a huge role to help create traction for children and to reduce distraction.

But…first of all we need to be clear on our own traction and become Indistractible.