"If a distraction comes up, I will ignore it"
In children, an if-then plan to ignore distractions beat a plain goal to ignore them — specifically when the distraction was attractive.
The short version
Telling yourself "I will ignore distractions" works when the distractions are boring. When they are genuinely attractive, it stops working. In this study with school-aged children, only an if-then plan — "If a distraction comes up, then I will ignore it" — protected performance against moderately and highly attractive distractions. The plan mattered most exactly when the temptation was strongest.
What the researchers did
Frank Wieber and colleagues at the University of Konstanz asked school-aged children to work on an ongoing categorization task, with their response times as the measure of performance. During the task, children faced distractions of low, moderate and high attractiveness, plus a distraction presented out of their line of sight. Some children held a simple goal intention to ignore distractions; others formed an implementation intention, an if-then plan linking the distraction to the response of ignoring it.
What they found
- A plain goal was enough for dull distractions. With low-attractiveness distractions, goal intentions alone kept children on task.
- Only if-then plans helped with tempting ones. For moderately and highly attractive distractions, and for the out-of-sight distraction, only the if-then plan improved task shielding.
- Faster work, less looking away. The benefit showed as faster responses and less time spent looking at highly attractive distractions presented out of view.
- Regardless of temperament. The results held regardless of the children's temperament and language competency.
Limits and caveats
This is a single study with children and a lab task, so applying it to adults at work relies on the broader if-then planning literature, which is large and consistent (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). The distractions were designed for the experiment rather than taken from everyday life.
What it means for how you work
Good intentions are weakest against the distractions you most enjoy. If a particular app, site or conversation reliably pulls you away, give it its own if-then plan rather than relying on resolve: "If I find myself opening the news site, then I close the tab and return to the task." The more appealing the distraction, the more a specific plan is worth writing. For adults, the same principle has been shown to protect goals from disruptive thoughts and feelings (Achtziger et al., 2008).