the magpie problem
I’ve often talked to my students and colleagues about the magpie problem, but I’ve never blogged about it. So what is the magpie problem?
Different academics have different names for it. The Thesis Whisperer spoke about The Dark Side, and I’ve also heard it called the Distraction Game, and Condensed Procrastination. I like to call it the Magpie Problem because it lets me do stupid bird impressions, but essentially, what we’re referring to here is the tendency to get distracted by interesting things that are not related to our current task or problem (like, say, finishing a PhD). Just the same way that magpies get distracted by something shiny (like tinfoil, or a bauble), we get distracted by a new book, or a new project, or a new idea. The grass is always more interesting over there.
That things are shiny isn’t the problem. What is the problem is the getting distracted. Everyone I know has some trick or tip for dealing with distraction. Mine is to have a magpie box (a folder on my computer; in my PhD days it was a literal box) where interesting things go, to be taken out at a later date when I am looking for a new task — many a new project or paper has come about when I get the chance to open my box and have a dig around for the shiniest shiny.
As I get older, the second part of the magpie problem is actually finding time to go into the magpie box. Just as we don’t want to be distracted too much by all the shinies out there, at the same time we don’t want to get too insular, too focused on only one thing so that we miss everything else. Google has the 20% time idea, where one day a week is given over to things ‘beyond the job description.’ I don’t think there are many academics who could give over a day a week to pecking at shiny ideas, but a little time here could be all that is needed to balance focus with “ooh, shiny!”
What about you? What do you do to manage distraction and interest and focus? ~points to the comments~
magpie image © Copyright Simon Johnston and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
