By James J. Caruso, CPA (inactive)

You’re proofreading financial statements due at noon, but you shift your eyes to another monitor to glance at your email for the fifth time in 30 minutes. Earlier, one of your colleagues kicked off a group conversation about some new issue, and you couldn’t resist immediately weighing in. Now you’re anxious to see the latest response. Nothing yet. You go back to the financial statements, but you are unfocused. You wonder what people thought about your email, so you feel a constant temptation to check your inbox again.

Later, you’re working on a financial model, thinking through variables, assumptions, and scenarios. The “ping” of a Microsoft Teams notification diverts your attention. You answer right away, but your colleague does not. So, you go back to your forecast, but without full concentration. You just know you’ll hear the ping of a response any second.

Next, you’re in a mandatory Zoom meeting. You’re grateful there’s a second monitor to escape the boredom and update your to-do list. You tell yourself you can listen, read, and write, all at the same time. One of your to-do items reminds you to send an email to a co-worker. She responds immediately (another colleague prioritizing email responsiveness over focused work). Wait, did someone in the Zoom meeting just say your name?

One last email session before the workday ends. At least you’re not multitasking, just “doing email.” But each email is about a different topic, triggering different chains of thought. Some emails are about larger projects, so you try to recall the history, status, and context. Some are just informational. Some require immediate responses. Others are ambiguous and could represent whole new projects, so they can’t be dealt with right now. Your attention is hopelessly fragmented across these different contexts.

Life outside of work isn’t any different: looking at Instagram between sets at the gym that evening; checking texts while out to dinner with friends; surfing the web while watching Netflix.

This is life in 2025: bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball; skimming along the surface, an inch deep and a mile wide. Choose the metaphor of your liking. Author Cal Newport calls it “continuous partial attention,” which has the ironically convenient acronym CPA.

CPA is an odd mode of existence for professionals who are supposed to think for a living. Why do we sabotage our own focus as well as our colleagues’ concentration? We would be appalled if professionals we rely on were similarly distracted. How would you react to a doctor checking her texts during your patient visit, or an electrician chatting with a friend on the phone while diagnosing your wiring problem? The modern work environment seems rigged to make us undermine our own work with self-imposed distractions. Imagine an athlete damaging his own physical performance by drinking shots of tequila during a game. As preposterous as this may sound, it is an apt analogy for how CPA degrades our mental performance. Worse, these patterns of behavior keep us from being fully present – with our colleagues, with family and friends, and during personal leisure pursuits.

It’s no great revelation that distraction – particularly of the digital variety – is a challenge for all of us. In fact, it is the very business model of social media: using algorithmically selected content to steal (and monetize) our attention. Author Oliver Burkeman believes that attention is much more than a “resource” to optimize and shield from distraction. To Burkeman, continuous partial attention is an existential problem. In Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Burkeman writes:

“To describe attention as a ‘resource’ is to subtly misconstrue its centrality in our lives. Most other resources on which we rely as individuals – such as food, money, and electricity – are things that facilitate life, and in some cases it’s possible to live without them, at least for a while. Attention, on the other hand, just is life: your experience of being alive consists of nothing other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention. At the end of your life, looking back, whatever compelled your attention from moment to moment is simply what your life will have been.”

The implications are profound: CPA dilutes the richness of life itself. Scattering attention haphazardly is to live without intention or depth. At work, we prioritize superficial roles as communicators and conduits for information instead of immersing ourselves in the deeper thinking of creative problem-solving that builds lasting value, new skills, and professional satisfaction. Outside of work, we dilute the moments that life is made of.

Avoiding distraction does not mean retreating to a monastery or a Caribbean island. But it does require discipline. These strategies can help:

• Time-block your day so that each hour is used intentionally, not randomly.
• Schedule and protect time blocks for sustained focused work.
• Batch smaller administrative tasks together in separate time blocks.
• Separate work from collaboration about work. Collaboration is valuable, but it prevents progress when interwoven throughout the entire day at the expense of focused work.
• Define structured processes that are less reliant upon haphazard back-and-forth messaging.
• Accumulate and save nonurgent items for discussion in scheduled meetings or office hours.
• Turn off email notifications and limit inbox checking to predetermined times.
• Put your phone in a drawer or on the other side of the room.
• Train yourself to sustain concentration for longer periods and through the onset of boredom. Reading books develops better focus. So does reducing dependence upon constant stimuli from checking your phone.

What kind of CPA do you want to be: one that lives with Continuous Partial Attention, or one that Continuously Pays Attention?

James J. Caruso, CPA (inactive), is the CFO of ClearView Healthcare Partners of Newton, Mass., and a member of the Pennsylvania CPA Journal Editorial Board. He can be reached at jim.caruso@clearviewhcp.com.

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^{Statements of fact and opinion are the authors’ responsibility alone and do not imply an opinion on the part of the PICPA's officers or members. The information contained herein does not constitute accounting, legal, or professional advice. For actionable advice, you must engage or consult with a qualified professional.}