Any suggestions for coping with distractions?

Today as I have been trying to write this post, I keep getting ping after ping from my email. I find myself getting more and more aggravated at the interruptions. (You’re not allowed to ignore an email are you?) As I switch from email to blog and back, I am going in circles trying to figure out what to write about.  My goal is to communicate to you about values so I want something that will be interesting for you and that you will read to the end.  Maybe I should just accept that my destiny today is to write about distractions from values and how to cope with them.   

Higgens, Margu, and Scholer (2012) have studied distractions and valuing.  They did an experiment where people were given a prize to solve anagrams while distracting noises played in the background.  The researchers told one group of participants to deal with the noise by “opposing” its interference - in other words to stay focused on the task.  People in the other group were told to “cope” with the unpleasant feelings the noise created – in a sense to pay attention to their feelings. The researchers measured how much attention people in each group paid to the noise versus the anagram, and also how much they valued the prize they would get.  Those who “opposed” the noise, paid less attention to it and also valued the prize more.  Those who focused on coping with feelings paid more attention to the distraction and valued the prize less.  It is not so surprising to me that if I focus on the task of writing (I’m doing that right this minute) and not on the distraction of my email, the writing will engage me more.  That seems intuitive.  What is a bit surprising is that if I focus on my writing instead of on coping with my aggravation, I will also value  the result more.The results for me is that I interest you in values and I can definitely say I will be very pleased it you got all the way here.    

Reference

Higgins, E.T., Marguc, J., & Scholer, A.A. (2012).  Value from adversity: How we deal with adversity matters. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 965-967. Doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.012