How to Use Distraction to Your Advantage

Online article highlighting that psychologists say that people who’ve had creative success often have “leaky attention,” meaning that when they are concentrating on one thing, other irrelevant information can still seep into their consciousness (information that’s irrelevant to their current task, but potentially very useful longer term). It’s as if creative types have an attentional system that’s less of a spotlight and more of a lantern that picks up a wide range of information (just as developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik says babies have). In contrast, most other adults have more of an attentional spotlight that zooms in on one thing at a time.

These laboratory findings could have real-life implications. If this idea of a leaky mind sounds like you, there could be simple ways you can exploit your mental style in some situations, while mitigating against it in others where it could be a drawback.

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