One day at a time

Day 80: Distraction

All the distraction.

Ironically, I began my day reading an article on how to stay focused, and being distracted can be more than just habitual – for some people, it’s a dopamine rush that comes from jumping from one stimulus to another, like phones buzzing or people or sounds that seem to call for attention; for others it’s because multitasking has become so normal it’s difficult to undo those practices; some have sensory or visual processing problems and even memory issues that lead to being unfocused.

The article mentioned how concentrating better takes work, and people need to start small to overcome those hindrances, and how the results are worth the effort because the mind actually finds pleasure in focusing its attention because concentrating on a task at-hand can induce a sense of calm.

But how does a person work on overcoming their children?

Because those are my biggest source of distraction, and these days there’s not much I can do about that.

First it was Brooke, sitting in across the dining room table from me during the County meeting I was attempting to listen to while writing stories and emails (already distracted in a sense, by other work, I suppose), showing me different memes every two minutes. I told her several times to stop being both distracted and distracting (she was supposed to be doing her own schoolwork, after all, particularly important today after being caught at work al day Tuesday). But she couldn’t stop.

She did finally walk away and leave me in peace, but that didn’t help her regain focus on her own work – I found the girl sprawled on the couch, still scrolling through Instagram, minutes later. It took a lit of prodding, cajoling, light-hearted threats to get her into work mode. She claimed it was Alyssa’s fault, because she was doing a workout in their bedroom, and didn’t like my response when I told her she should have brought her work outside the room if that’s the issue.

Distraction number one.

Number two was Kevin, who briefly breezed through the kitchen and dining room packing up for his day at the office.

Three was Hannah, who complimented the day with a host of emotional breakdowns – she is so done with all of this – and had a difficult time getting to work on her craft project assigned by the kindergarten teacher this week. It was a simple task, but she just couldn’t give it more than a minute or two at a time.

I found her looking out the window with the cardboard roll from the parchment paper box, bugging her siblings, looking through the fliers that came in the newspaper (which she collected from the front step when she noticed it had been delivered). More than once she was found up in the loft trying to talk to Brooke, who really didn’t need any help in being distracted.

The two of them were quite the pair today.

Distraction number four came from The Boy, who wanted to make cookies but had to run a number of recipes by me first to make sure we had ingredient – couldn’t you just look in the pantry yourself? No, we don’t have enough chocolate chips for that. Try to find something with cocoa instead. Yes, that will work.

His baking is a delicious distraction, though.

Distraction five and six – Alyssa, needing a bit of help working out the wording of an English paper and asking questions.

These aren’t terrible distractions. For the most part, they don’t bother me, but when I’m trying to listen to a livestreamed meeting, they get a bit frustrating.

More than once I lost it a little, groaned or uttered an exasperated response.

“I’m working,” or “Please stop, I need to hear this,” or simply “No, not now,” and even “Oh my God, enough,” came out of my mouth more than once today.

By the end of the afternoon, I think I’d managed to hear what I needed to in the County meeting and I’m pretty sure the kids all finished their allotted work for the day, but holy cow – it was a rough one.

I can’t wait until I can work in peace again, when council meetings are not held at my dining room table with four kids who need direction, because as much as it’s not their fault, as much as I love them, they’re the worst distraction I face, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Maybe tomorrow will bring more focus.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca

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