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This is known as the Zeigarnik effect, and it makes our internal
distractions the hardest to overcome, according to Goleman:

“
It’s not the chatter of people around us that is the
most powerful distractor, but rather the chatter of
our own minds.

But perhaps overcoming distractions isn’t a sustainable approach,
anyway. According to David Rock, executive director of the
NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work,
distractions are a part of life because it’s impossible to overcome them
completely:

“
... there’s no way not to be distracted by
distractions, it’s built into the brain in the way we
pay attention to novelty.

Our brains are brilliant at pattern-matching, and at noticing anything
that doesn’t match a pattern. We’re drawn to novelty, and this makes a
distraction in an otherwise monotonous workday very hard to ignore.

Alan Hedge, workplace design expert at Cornell University, says the
fact that we’re social creatures makes it particularly hard to ignore
distractions related to other people—which covers most of the
distractions we face in a workday.

Being social creatures, says Hedge, makes us innately curious about
other humans, which makes it near impossible to tune other people
out. We’re trying to overcome the way we’re naturally wired.

To make it worse, we find it hard to ignore anything that’s unpredictable.
You’ll know this if you’ve ever tried to sleep while there’s loud noises
outside your window at random intervals—a neighbor’s party with
occasional loud laughter or talking, for instance. Compare that to the
consistent hum of a fan, which lulls us off to sleep peacefully.

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