Distraction: The Most Convincing Fake Work in the World

Chris Terrell
Jan 2
3 min read

Updated: Jan 3

If you work long enough in knowledge work, you eventually bump into a strange truth: distraction feels exactly like work. It has all the emotional weight of effort, all the urgency of action, and absolutely none of the value. Welcome back to the Process Debt Podcast, where Toby and I spend an hour a week talking about something the modern workplace generates by the metric ton—unnecessary work.

Last week, we ended our recording saying, “Okay, distraction is next.” And sure enough, distraction showed up immediately—like it always does—pretending it belongs in the meeting.

When Reaction Pretends to Be Work

There’s the obvious form of distraction: the doom scroll in the middle of a tough assignment. You hit a fuzzy patch in a project, and suddenly every sports score, Reddit thread, and half-baked news headline becomes fascinating. That’s personal distraction—your brain convincing you that TikTok is somehow essential to your job description.

But the sneakier distraction is its corporate cousin: reactivity.

You’re deep in real work, finally hitting stride, and suddenly someone bursts in with a hair-on-fire emergency. Which usually means one of two things:

They didn’t read the thing.
They read the thing emotionally.

Either way, your actual work gets shoved aside so you can react to someone else’s panic. And here’s the maddening part—your reaction feels like you’re being productive. You’re moving, answering, and re-opening work you already finished. It feels active. It feels important. It feels like progress.

Except… It’s just a distraction wearing a badge.

The Strategic Cost of Constant Whiplash

Now zoom out.

Executives experience a different kind of distraction—the kind wrapped in enthusiasm. Someone overhears a leader muse, “Wouldn’t it be great if…” and suddenly an eager IC spends a week building a full pitch deck for an idea the exec barely meant out loud.

No malice. Just misalignment.

But this is what happens when strategy isn’t clear. Everyone fills the silence with their own interpretation of “the work.” The organization becomes a thousand well-meaning distractions bumping into each other, each convinced they're solving a problem.

It’s corporate homeostasis: the work expands to fill every available hour, whether or not that work matters.

Strategy should be like going to the doctor: You describe the pain → they diagnose it → they prescribe the treatment → and you act. Simple. Clear. Actionable.

But most companies aren’t diagnosing anything. They’re just saying, “Hit $50M ARR,” which is not a strategy — it’s a scoreboard. And scoreboards don’t tell teams what plays to run.

Why Distraction Flourishes in Ambiguity

Think about sports. Everyone on the field knows the objective: win. They know the immediate goal: score. They know their role in achieving it. There’s no ambiguity, no existential wandering, no “Wait… what are we doing again?”

Knowledge work is the opposite. No physical constraints. No hard stop. No whistle. No muddy field reminding you that concrete dries whether you're ready or not.

So we drift. We fill empty calendars with meetings to feel busy. We answer Slack pings instantly because a fast reaction feels like competence. We lose whole days to clarifying things that should’ve been clear in the first place.

Distraction thrives where clarity dies.

The Backbone of Distraction-Free Work: Clear Strategy and Clear Rituals

If strategy defines where we’re going, rituals define how we operate on the way there. And clarity—real clarity—might be the highest form of kindness in a workplace.

Clarity gives people permission not to chase every shiny object. Clarity makes a reaction optional rather than expected. Clarity keeps people from accidentally creating work that never needed to exist.

Because at the end of the day, distraction only wins when purpose is fuzzy.

Process Debt Truth

You won’t be on your deathbed wishing you hadn't been distracted more. But your organization might survive longer if it gets distracted less.