Why Smart People Are More Easily Distracted

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Let’s face it. It can be hard to concentrate at work.  With the thousand emails you receive, the endless stream of text messages, the constant Facebook temptation, and that amazing Uptown Funk mashup that was shared, there is a lot going on.

If you have trouble concentrating on work, have no fear. It may just mean you are smarter than the average person.  According to a new study by Steelcase, more intelligent people have more trouble focussing and prioritizing all the ideas they have bouncing around in their head.

Psychiatrist Dr. Ned Hallowell spoke with Daily Mail and said that smarter people try to deal with each idea as it comes up instead of focusing on the what they were just working on.  This then can lead to a feeling of inadequacy and inability to deal with the overall workload.

Steelcase’s Bostjan Ljubic conducted the survey of more thane 10,000 workers in 17 countries. Ljubic said: “Employers are always on the lookout for the brightest people available, however the difficulty to withstand multiple tasks and distractions in the office affects smart people in the same way as everyone else, if not more. 

The ways in which we work are changing more rapidly than ever before and the brain is being subjected to stresses and distractions which can lead to overload and statistics show that distractions in the workplace are on the rise.”

Steelcase, also provided some interesting facts on why we are so distracted:

  • The average worker is interrupted every 3 minutes.
  • It can take 23 minutes to return to the original task you were working on after being distracted.
  • A worker has an average of 8 windows open on his or her computer.
  • The average person checks their phone 221 times per day.

So when you find yourself checking Facebook for the 20th time in the last hour, relax, it just means you are a smart person 🙂

 

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About the Author
Will Schuerman
Will loves discovering and sharing tips to help make life easier. In addition to his passion for hacks and tips, Will is a former granola business proprietor and a life long techie.

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