During the pandemic lockdown I found myself like many others across the country trying to work from home. At the time my kids were two and four years old. As you can imagine, it went about as good as you’d think it would. I would equate it to trying to do work while at a music concert. The distractions were loud, funny and entertaining. My productivity suffered but I learned a lot from this time about dealing with distraction.
As I write this, it’s late at night while my wife and kids are asleep. Why do I wait until late at night to write? This eliminates the potential for any distractions to come about. I block this time out to write. I have the Sunday night football game on mute and my phone is hidden behind my computer screen. This is one way I deal with my toughest enemy each day, distractions.
Distractions create excuses. Distractions prevent you from doing what you envision. Distractions hold you back from reaching your goals. They create failure and regret because you wasted time on distractions and not on the important. It fuels the, “I don’t have time or I didn’t have time” excuses. Why’s that? Because distractions ate up your time.
Avoid the temptation of distractions. How do you avoid distractions? That’s easier said than done. Sort of like saying, I want to eat healthy and not have anything with sugar.
Ways of avoiding distractions can vary for every person. It’s a battle that’s fought each and every day. Here are some ways that I’ve found to deal with distractions by trying to eliminate the temptation to even allow it to creep in.
Put your phone out of sight and remove notifications. The single most helpful thing I’ve done is to remove phone distractions. My phone is now always on silent. When I’m trying to get work done I put my phone out of sight. My watch will tap me if it’s a phone call. That’s all the notifications I get. If I want to receive none, I set things to airplane mode. My email gives no number of unread emails on my phone screen. I have to go into the app to see if I have any emails. Texts will only show a number next on the app now. When my phone is locked there are no notifications that show on the screen anymore. It eliminates the temptation to even go into my phone. I love it!
Block all phone numbers that are not in your contacts. This is the best feature that Apple has brought out in a long time. Go into your phone settings and turn on the silence unknown callers button. Now my phone will only notify me when one of my contacts calls me. The others go right to voicemail. What a beautiful thing!
Remove notifications from all your apps. Your home screen should not be lighting up all day with app notifications. Go in and delete apps you don’t use and the ones you keep, disable all app notifications. None of what they’re telling you is that important anyway. They just want to keep you engaged and on their apps.
Computer notifications are not needed. Just like apps on your phone don’t need notifications, neither does your computer. Your computer shouldn’t be dinging or flashing when you get an email, when news happens or anything else occurs. Disable all of those distractions. Most work that is done now is done via computers. Don’t allow for random distractions to alter your concentration.
Time block your activities and the time to get your priorities completed. Set certain times to check your emails. Maybe even certain times to reply to emails. Other activities that take up your time be sure to limit and set to certain times so you avoid that time spilling over into your important time to get work done.
Multi-tasking is a distraction. You may be able to do it but it compromises quality. I like how people boast about being a multi-tasker. Like it’s some form of a badge of honor. To me multi-tasking means, the jack of all trades, master of none.
TV should be off or on mute. Something is bound to interrupt your work or throw off your train of thought. A commercial, sound, funny quote, big play in a game, etc. Those come without notice. With it on mute you can look up and check things when you want. After you finish this or that. You’re in control. Not the TV.
Close your office door or go somewhere where you can be left alone. If you don’t create boundaries or brick-like walls for people to be away from you, you’re not going to be left alone.
Make yourself unavailable. Yes you’re important. But you can be left alone for lengths of time. You can’t be available to everyone all the time. Things will survive without you. Unplug, disengage and be left alone so you can get the things done that you need to do.
Stay off social media. Remember apps on your phone and social media want you to stay on their sites. If you’ve never seen the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma you need to. Still one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched. It shows how everything social media and websites do is crafted to keep you engaged.
The world continues to be more distracting everyday. Don’t be like so many others and allow your life to be eaten up by distractions. If you have goals, priorities and things you want to accomplish, start by squashing distractions.
The Coffee Table ☕
If you want to get an understanding of what went on with FTX and how that blowup could have contagion risk yet to come to crypto, take a listen to The All-In Podcast E104. At the 21 minute mark they’re joined by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and they go over what happened and discuss Brian’s conversation with Sam Bankman-Fried right after it happened.
My wife and I are watching White Lotus Season 2 on HBO. We loved the first season of it and so far the second season is just as good.
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