Sometimes the pop culture we love just teens hits differently in retrospect.

Maybe it's a tabloid story we couldn't get enough of or an illicit student-teacher relationship

on our favorite show. We're Suzy Banna-Karim and Jessica Bennett,

posts of the new podcast in retrospect, where each week we'll revisit a cultural moment from

the past that shaped us and probably you to try to understand what it taught us about the world

and our place in it. You're the first person that I've talked to about this for years and years.

Listen to in retrospect on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows.

Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that what you don't know can't distract you.

By reducing the number of audio and visual notifications you get,

you can increase the chances that you focus on whatever you choose to focus on.

I don't have to tell anyone listening to this podcast that the world can be a distracting place.

Our phones and laptops can wind up dinging all day long to say nothing of people popping by.

Now, to be clear, sometimes things that look like distractions are just the nature of collaboration

or building your relationships. If you work at home, I would suggest not scheduling anything uninterruptible

for the moment your kids get off the bus. They might want to tell you about their days

and planning for that is probably better than viewing that as a distraction.

And if you work at home, you actually do want your colleagues to reach out to you if doing so means

that you are not a bottleneck or if you're able to redirect something that would take a long time

to unwind. That said, none of this is either or and many of the things that distract us do not

rise to that level of necessity. The key is minimizing the unimportant distractions

...