How to kick the distraction addiction

Illustration: Tim Bradford

I recently interviewed a professor at Stanford University about the topic of digital distraction, which I think we can all agree is fairly pertinent given the mind-boggling stats in the press of how often we check our phones (around 150 interactions a day).

Portfolio: Fighting digital distraction

Illustration: Tim Bradford

Digital technology has become an indispensible part of our daily lives and many argue that distraction is the price of our high-tech world, but Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of The Distraction Addiction, says that’s wrong. He believes that we need to retake control of our relationship with technology and learn to use it in ways that allow us to be more mindful, efficient and productive

At its simplest, distraction occurs when you should be focusing your attention on a specific task, but some other task or thought keeps you from staying focused. Now there are times when it’s perfectly fine to let your thoughts take over. In fact, our brains are well designed for mind wandering; distraction, however, is less positive.

Portfolio: The organisation of your dreams

Illustration: Makers Company

As engagement levels at organisations remain challenging, Professor Rob Goffee of London Business School asks a pertinent question: why should anyone work here? He tells Reflect how organisations can become more authentic by using the DREAMS model

Gareth Jones and myself wrote a book called Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? which had a central recommendation: be yourself more, with skill. We asked what is different about you as a leader that will lift, inspire and motivate others. Executives who we worked with liked this idea, but many of them turned round and said, “I’ll be more authentic if I work in an authentic organisation.” The more people who said this to us, the more we paid attention: what did they mean when they talked about an ‘authentic organisation’?

Portfolio: The future of travel

Illustration: White Light Media

It’s the year 2024. You are travelling from Zurich to New York for a business meeting with a new client. Your Digital Travel Buddy sifts through all the data of your previous business trips to provide you with a tailored itinerary and book your travel. After checking in using your smart-watch, you arrive early at the airport to shop its virtual walls before a holographic staff member informs you that your flight is ready for boarding and guides you to the gate. There’s no line at security as the latest biometric software scans people from afar. On the flight, your seat becomes a virtual office and you have a quick meeting in 3D with a business colleague. Arriving in New York, your favourite music is playing when you check in to your hotel room. After a quick Vitamin C shower to recover from jetlag, you then leave for your meeting.

It may sound far-fetched, but Skyscanner’s vision for the future of travel is much more realistic than you would at first think. The global travel search engine recently collaborated with industry experts and futurologists on a report exploring how travel will become richer, easier and more intuitive within the next 10 years. As Director of B2B, Filip Filipov, explains, business travel will likewise be transformed by technology.

Portfolio: Gerwegian fizz

Image: David Anderson for Hot Rum Cow

WEST’s Petra Wetzel on keeping it simple, taking on lager’s big boys and leaving a legacy

The 19th-century Templeton building is an unexpected, yet welcome sight in the large, open expanse of Glasgow Green, the city’s oldest park. It is an imposing, hulking building, which was modelled on the Doge’s palace in Venice to appease local residents of a factory being built on their doorstep. Step through its doors, and it feels as if I’ve just landed bang smack in the centre of not Venice, but Munich. I’m greeted by the strong waft of beer and the low hum of chatter in a spacious, Bavarian-style beer hall, complete with acres of dark wood, an impressive array of taps and steins of frothy lager. If it wasn’t for the Glaswegian accents giving it away, you might think this was the Hofbräuhaus.

Instead, it’s WEST brewery, and I’m here to talk to its effervescent founder Petra Wetzel.

Portfolio: Polugar’s back for the crown

Image: Poluga for Hot Rum Cow

Vodka is merely a pretender to Polugar’s throne. Controversial perhaps, but Boris Rodionov makes a strong case for Russia’s forgotten drink claiming the title of Russia’s national drink

It was supped by European kings and queens in the time of Ivan the Terrible, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Peter the Great. It was cherished and distilled by Russia’s nobility and loved by their loyal subjects. But when column stills were introduced to Russia in the late 19th century, along with a state monopoly on booze, Polugar was exiled, condemned to a life of obscurity and banished to the history books.