Genius way to eliminate pesky distractions

To stop thinking about a nagging to-do so you can concentrate on a high-priority task, focus on it, then push it from your mind, say scientists in Nature Communications. They showed subjects various photos and told them to replace the thought of an image by thinking of another image, to get rid of it by suppressing it or to think of nothing. Brain scans showed that all methods worked, but suppression was best. Why? Working memory can only hold so much at a time, and this makes room for new thoughts.