Quotes About Distraction

while the teletypes chugged and rang and the Wall Street tickers ticked and everybody around me argued baseball, until it was mercifully time to go home.

It was impossible to get the Dimitri and Tasha thing out of my head, but at least packing and getting ready made sure I didn't devote 100 percent of my brain power to him. More like 95 percent.

Sydney! Stop. Think of something else. Conjugate Latin verbs. Recite the periodic table.

Considering Adrian had once gotten bored while reading while reading a particularly long menu, I had a hard time imagining he'd read the Hugo book in any language.

As amusing as it was to see him lovestruck, we had to stay on track. I snapped my fingers in front of Marcus's face. "Focus," I said.

He's also pretty good looking. Okay more than good looking. He's hot-like, the kind of hot that makes you stop walking in the street and get hit by traffic.

Why couldn't I be locked away in my room or the library doing something enjoyable, like homework?

A BOOK?! WHAT D'YOU WANNA FLAMING BOOK FOR?...WE'VE GOT A LOVELY TELLY WITH A 12-INCH SCREEN AND NOW YA WANNA BOOK!

She was talking very fast and very loudly to everyone, but it was not easy to hear all that she said because she was chewing so ferociously upon a piece of gum at the same time.

Our external environments mirror our internal lives. If your desk is cluttered, don't be surprised if you find it hard to focus. If your closet and garage are piled with stuff you don't use, don't be shocked when you are easily distracted. If things are lying around your living and working space that don't serve a clear purpose, don't be amazed that you aren't very calm and centered.

Polyconsciousness is what one researcher termed the resulting state of mind that divides attention between the physical world and the one our devices connect us to, undermining here-and-now interactions with actual people and things around us.

A hypereffective schedule designed to maximize productivity is, in fact, more likely to distract you from what's important than help you discover it.

I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.

Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water;

He had decided that what was going on was that everybody was very carefully avoiding paying attention to what was going on.

Mostly I thought about Susan with her clothes off. This would solve nearly any problem I had

But she didn't listen, she was in the bathroom, she was getting dressed, she was putting on make-up, she was getting ready. Getting ready.

Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.

Our continual connection to social media makes us prone to new forms of viral emotional effects. These are not media designed for calm reflection.

The pain is kind of challenge your mind presents - will you learn how to focus and move past boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?

What offers immediate pleasure comes to seem like a distraction, an empty entertainment to help pass the time. Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings.

People with a lot of time on their hands are extremely susceptible to seduction. They have mental space for you to fill.

Leaders have always found it useful to have an enemy at their gates in times of trouble, distracting the public from their difficulties. In using your enemies to rally your troops, polarize them as far as possible: they will fight the more fiercely when they feel a little hatred. So exaggerate the differences between you and the enemy—draw the lines clearly.

Real pleasure comes from overcoming challenges, feeling confidence in your abilities, gaining fluency in skills, and experiencing the power this brings. You develop patience. Boredom no longer signals the need for distraction, but rather the need for new challenges to conquer. Although