Cracking on in a world of distraction
We are drowning in distraction. Even just sitting down to write this article I got distracted by the 19yo ringing me talking about nutrition needs for his forthcoming Thai boxing match. I put the phone down on him and because it was in my hand I went to scroll Insta before I even thought about what I was doing. Oh the irony of writing about being distracted whilst being distracted.
Research shows that 44% of our distractions are self-inflicted. Nearly half the time, it’s not your phone, your inbox, or the noisy neighbour - it’s a you problem. How hard do you even find it to read this entire piece of prose without skimming it or being distracted by another thought niggling your noggin?
According to research, it can take up to 23 minutes to get back into focus after an interruption. That’s not a quick sidestep.
That’s nearly half an hour of lost time, energy, and momentum - every single time we let something pull us off course, every single time an email pings in and we think ‘oh I’ll just sort that’ or someone asks if they can JUST grab you for five minutes. It’s never five minutes and then takes another 23 minutes to get back on track.
We are living through what the blinking fabulous Johann Hari calls a global attention crisis (Stolen Focus – go read his book). We are not just occasionally distracted; we are structurally wired, nudged and pressured into distraction. And, Doris, we’re also colluding with it.
There’s a hidden weight of distraction.
It’s easy to blame social media pings, emails, or calls from the 19 year old. But the truth is, the real distraction lives in the invisible load.
The emotional load. The caring load. All the peopleing of all the people.
One of my coaching clients talked to me about the invisible mental spreadsheet of everything and everyone: deadlines, her dog, organising all the support services that meant she had a chance of cracking on, the after-school logistics, the never-ending what’s app groups, the pressure to be see, to show up, to be the best friend, partner, female leader there was, wondering whether she was there enough for a friend going through divorce, and, the actual business of actual work. Of course she couldn’t focus; she didn’t stand a chance her brain was in twenty gazillion tabs at all times switching from tab to tab, jumping from demand to demand.
When another client did her distraction audit she found that around 70% of her distractions were actually people-pleasing. She wasn’t pulled away by emails. She was pulled away by her need to fix, to hold the sky up, to make everything okay for everyone in her world, her “let me just help you with that” and “I’ll jump on that call even though I don’t need to be there” was a big fat spanner in her ability to crack on with the success of her. The constant drip-feed of saying yes to other people’s noise left no bandwidth for her own signal.
This is the mental clutter that behavioural scientists call cognitive load. Every time your brain is forced to switch tasks, your prefrontal cortex (the part that handles focus and decision-making) burns through glucose. That’s why you can sit down to “do nothing much” and still end the day knackered. It’s not laziness - it’s biology. Our psychology can only ever rise to the level of our biology.
The reality? We’re not always “on.” We’re always blinking distracted.
Johann Hari offers a simple, powerful way of thinking about attention across three levels and it’s been a game changer for a lot of my clients.
Applying the Spotlight aka immediate attention.
This is the beam you need for the task right in front of you: the report, the call, the gym session, the time with your kidults. For one client, her spotlight breakthrough was banning “double screening” - she realised half her mistakes were made while half-watching emails ping during Zoom meetings. Being intentionally in the meeting made decision making quicker, the meetings more productive and she got shit done.
Applying the Starlight aka long-term goals.
This is the compass that keeps you moving towards something bigger. One founder I work with realised she hadn’t thought about her starlight in years. She was brilliant at the spotlight; always on the next urgent deadline, always in the business but she had no compass looking on the business. By applying a starlight lens she knew where she was heading – she became outcome focused, because once we can look at the outcome, our brains start moving towards it – the power of a creation mindset. Working with what you are seeking to create (not looking to avoid).
Applying the Daylight aka mindful awareness.
The reflective pause where you check: Am I chasing the right goals — or just the ones I inherited? When I work with business teams and different cohorts, so often the feedback is based around the beauty of basking in a bit of reflection time. It’s when you gift yourself the chance to hold a mirror up and figure out what you actually want or whether you’re living against someone else’s plan.
A Practical First Step: The Distraction Audit
As with anything that looks at our personal growth system, the success of you, the first step is always about simply giving yourself the chance to notice what’s going on, being curious about what, who is demanding your attention and stealing your focus…and is it something you can and want to change. And then it’s making those tiny 1% marginal gains of change.
For one day, simply log every single distraction.
Not just the obvious ones - your phone, emails, notifications.
But notice the sneaky ones too:
The mental tab-switching (“don’t forget to order cat food… oh god, I didn’t send the client deck… must reply to my mate’s text”).
The doomscroll that started with “I’ll just check the news.”
Then ask:
Did this fuel me or drain me?
Was this a reset or a derailment?
Awareness is step one. Because you can’t reclaim what you don’t even notice you’ve lost.
The Inner Edge™ Connection
In my Inner Edge Framework, this work sits firmly under my Clarity pillar. Distraction clouds clarity. Clarity cuts through distraction.
But it also bleeds into Energy. Attention is energy. Every time you say yes to a distraction, you spend energy that could have fuelled your real work.
So the question is not just what are you distracted by but what is it costing you?
Crack On Anyway
The world isn’t going to stop pinging. The lists aren’t going to stop growing. The invisible load isn’t going to politely step aside.
But you can still crack on. You can still choose spotlight, starlight and daylight. You can choose clarity. You can choose to back yourself instead of every single ping. But only you can make the choice to crack on.
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P.S. I’m Sarah - your not-so-secret weapon to reset, recharge and reclaim you, your leadership, your business and your life on your terms. (Because it’s not about one or the other; it’s about how they blend together)
I'm the founder of FoundHer Fire. FoundHer Fire is the personal growth collective - high-impact, high-support, and unapologetically built for experienced women in their crack on era. The ones who’ve quit without a plan. Been blindsided by redundancy. Woken up and thought: “I don’t even recognise myself anymore.” The ones hitting an age where the whisper turns into a roar: “I need to make this count and I need to crack on right now.” The ones who know there’s more — but are still figuring out what the actual beejesus “more” looks like.
It’s not a course. Not another whats app. And definitely not another space where you have to keep up the “I’m fine” act. It’s where you crack on with the ultimate human scaffolding system.
I’m the host of “It’s Got Pockets” where we talk plot twists, pockets, and the power of doing life your way.
And I’m the creator of The Inner Edge™ - the mindset and leadership advantage that helps you rebuild, rewire and reframe your potential for peak performance.
