Today there are more distractions, devices, and tasks competing for our attention than ever. I often find it difficult to focus on what’s important with all this noise so I thought maybe you out there may like to use some of the techniques I’ve found helpful (when I use them) to combat getting distracted.
The Prioritised To Do List
The ultimate to do list for me has everything and anything that I need to do on it. But this can be quite overwhelming. This is because I don’t want to forget anything and there are many different facets to my life that I feel all deserve equal attention. This causes me to have some crazy delimma’s. When I have time to do something I’ll often have a top pick from ten different areas in my life. This simply leaves me stuck and ultimately I end up wasting the time instead of making a decision and going for actioning one thing.
So, have a to do list. But definitely the thing that makes a To-Do list actually useful is prioritising. Set your priorities based off of weekly or monthly goals or targets. That way you don’t get so overwhelmed and stuck which just leads to procrastination!
Disconnect
The most effective kind of work is one where you allow yourself to focus and complete ‘deep work’ to meet your objectives. Imagine you’re trying to get into the groove on a project and every five minutes someone waltz’s into your office to chat. Well, unfortunately that is what emails, social media, and chat groups tend to be like. And unless you’re super disciplined in how you use these tools then time can run away from you and all of a sudden you’ve spend an hour scrolling through your feed. Or collectively you’ve been jarred out of completing work because of the stream of emails that has poured into your inbox throughout the day.
If you can, try to avoid connecting for the first few hours of your day and instead do some real work, make some excellent progress on something! And then once you’ve achieved something for the day you’ll be in a frame of mind to continue the pace, with short breaks allowed for the checking emails and other rather unproductive tasks.
Use a Timer
Ok, so, I’ll admit this one will take a bit of getting used to but really it is a brilliant way to keep your day balanced with enough stretch/coffee breaks allowed so you don’t get tired. The method is called the Pomodoro Method (Italian for tomato)!
The idea is that you work for 25 minutes then take a 5 minute break, rinse and repeat. The 25 minutes is a sacred portion of time where you don’t allow distractions but rather set your self a task before hand and only work on that specific task for the whole 25 minutes. Sounds simple, but trust me it’s a whole lot harder when you’re used to a different style of working.
There are some great apps that do the timing for you in the different app stores, which I highly recommend you check out!
Focus on One Thing at a Time
Yep, this one is pretty simple and self explaintory but just in case you need some convincing, splitting your time between seventeen different tasks, aka multi-tasking is a really bad idea. It’s something to do with the way your brain works, where when you jump from one task to another you lose the momentum you’ve built up and you kind of have to refresh yourself with where you were at with the next task before you can get up and running doing something productive. So really you’re slowly losing time to these moments where your brain is reconnecting with this new task you’ve jumped to. I must again admit, this isn’t a thing that comes easy to me these days. I find myself jumping around from task to task and it’s not the most efficient use of my time I’ve decided it’s a habit that I’ve got to break.
Slow Down to Speed Up
Another catchy phrase you may have heard before, but again very true. Sometimes when you’re trying to rush through something you just make mistakes and end up spending more time having to go back and correct what could have been done properly the first time. This is because we’re trying to fit so much into our crammed days that it feels like we should go faster to get more done. But sometimes that just doesn’t work.
Take the time to do the things that matter properly. If you can’t right now, maybe you can come back to this task when you have a bit more time to work through it properly.
Make Use of your Time Slivers
If you practice thoughtfully using your time slivers, or the in between bits of time that you usually spend frivolously or without a thought then it becomes easier when you get larger portions of time to eliminate distractions, knuckle down and get the work done.
In this case practice makes easier. The more you practice eliminating or at least reducing distractions by employing the solutions above the more likely you’ll have long term success. Every mountain is climbed by putting one foot in front of the other. Step by step the adventurer works toward the summit, but it takes many steps to get there.
Making the best use of the time we have in order to achieve the things in life we want to achieve is like that. It’s a step by step forward motion that gradually moves us in the right direction toward us living the life of our dreams.
The Challenge
In today’s world filled with all the distractions money can buy and plenty that are completely free there is so much that competes for our attention. Be it at work, school, or at home, there is only so much time. Even when you’re on holiday if you don’t make plans to do the things you want to do and then actually do them you could end up at the end of the break feeling rather dissatisfied because you didn’t spend your time how you wanted to.
So, I hope that you will take up the challenge with me and really dig deep. Figure out what are the genuine priorities on your do list and disconnect from the noise. Then use the Pomodoro Method to increase your productivity whilst focusing on just one task at a time. Allow yourself the freedom to take things slow to avoid rework and then practice eliminating distractions by using your time slivers wisely.
I’d love to know what you think about this and if you found this useful please take a minute to share with someone you know!