The Importance of Getting Distracted

The pervasive message of “stay focused for success” is wrong

On any given day, the productivity section of my news feed greets me with umpteen articles espousing the virtues of staying focused. Pieces about the science of staying focused, techniques for keeping my mind from wandering, and re-hashed messages on how billionaires become billionaires because of their nearly inhuman ability to stay laser-focused on specific goals. It seems to be generally accepted among success-minded folks that focus is fundamental to excelling in business and life.

But what happens when we carefully analyze that idea? Let’s, shall we say, focus on the origins and philosophy of staying focused for a bit and see what problems we can dig up.

The concept of “staying focused” in the context of financial success is intertwined with the economic notion of division of labour. The idea of dividing tasks among people to improve productivity on the population level isn’t new. Plato described the division of labor two and half millenia ago. Essentially, an economy can produce more stuff faster if it functions something like an assembly line, with each person focusing on mastering specific tasks. It’s more efficient for a carpenter, a plumber, an architect, and an electrician to work together to build fours houses than for…