Science says: smart people are more easily distracted

Every day I get really frustrated with my own very short attention span. My eyes constantly dart around, and on average, I can't hold the same thought for longer than three seconds. Generally, I'm also busy with twenty things at once, which sometimes makes me completely lose track. It only takes one airplane to fly by, and I drift off completely to my fear of flying and imagine what kind of people would be on board. And even at this moment, while I'm typing this article, I'm already busy with my next topic. In the meantime, I'm also paying close attention to every passerby. In other words: dramatic. And especially very awkward, especially when you have to work.

But this morning I heard something in a podcast about productivity and focus that made me very cheerful again. It was about how people who get distracted easily are actually just really smart. Well, I wanted to dig into that right away. And what turns out? Science indeed confirms this. YES.

A study by research agency Steelcase has shown that it is precisely the most intelligent people who get distracted quickly in the workplace. They surveyed more than 10,000 employees from seventeen countries about their behavior at work. It turned out that every employee has an average of eight tabs open, checks their email every two minutes, and looks at their phone about 200 times a day. I don't think eight tabs is that much?

Well, psychologist Ned Hallowell, who was involved in this research, discovered that the more employees were distracted during the workday, the smarter they were. According to him, this is because intelligent people want to respond to all incoming stimuli. Every distraction is equally important and interesting to them. As a result, they are also more sensitive to distractions and external stimuli. They want to realize all those brilliant ideas or plans in their heads, but they don't quite know where to start and what to execute first. And that's exactly why it's so impressive that they still deliver good work despite all the distractions.

Well, my day can't get any better, you know. So do you often feel bad about yourself because you get distracted so quickly? Then especially don't worry: you're just super intelligent.

Source: Daily Mail