Distractions are everywhere in our world today. If you were to stop and make a record of every distraction you dealt with throughout your day, that’s all you would do.
I’ve identified five of the biggest distractions that nearly everyone deals with. If you’re not part of the worldwide web, not only are you not reading these words, but you don’t deal with at least three of the five. But you still, well, what am I saying…you’re not even reading this article!
For the rest of the world, here are my top five distractions and one solution for each. Of course, there are more solutions but I wanted to give you one solution to each so you could get started.
SOCIAL MEDIA
In case you’re not aware, social media is designed to keep you on whatever platform forever. Or at least until you die. And perhaps even after that.
It is a big part of our lives, no doubt.
Before I give you my solution, there are two aspects to using social media:
- Consuming for pleasure
- Growing your brand/cause
You need to be on social media to promote your brand, business, and cause. And therefore, I have no problems with the amount of time you are using social for this purpose.
But when it comes to consuming social media, you need to limit the amount of time you spend on it. Otherwise, you may be on it for a very long time.
WHAT TO DO
- set yourself a timer for no longer than 60 minutes. Everyone phone has a builtin timer. But do yourself a favor and purchase yourself an annoying timer from your App Store. You want something that will jolt you from being on social.
- schedule an event after your social media time. This way, you’ll get a prompt – an alert or notification – telling you it’s time to move on.
I don’t see email going away in my lifetime. It can be an important part of your business and life.
But…do you have to be in it all the time? Probably not. And you probably don’t need to have notifications on either.
WHAT TO DO
Schedule time when you will be in email. And when it’s not time, don’t be in it. I have news for you: you are not that important (and neither am I).
PEOPLE
Look…there’s no way around it. You’re going to have to deal with your fellow human beings. But what I don’t want you to do is be a doormat (always saying yes).
WHAT TO DO
Create and enforce boundaries. When someone asks you if you’ve got some time or if you’d like to join a committee, group, cause, etc. and you either can’t (due to your prior time commitments) or don’t want to, politely decline. Stop saying yes to everyone. Successful people say no way more than they say yes.
ENTERTAINMENT
Watching television/movies, playing video games or hanging out with your friends or attending parties are not “bad” but here’s a rule I try to follow more often than not: I have to earn the right to.
WHAT TO DO
If you had a productive day, then go ahead and watch that show, play that game or go out with your friends.
But if you were a lazy person today, perhaps you shouldn’t reward yourself by doing so.
YOUR MINDSET
Take an inventory of who you hang around and distance yourself from those that suck your energy out of you; those who make you feel sad, angry, overwhelmed, frustrated or some other negative emotion.
WHAT TO DO
Embrace positivity, reject negativity.
Remember Winnie the Pooh? Or Tigger? Happy characters indeed! Strive to be them and hang around people like them.
Avoid the Eeyores of the world.
Dealing with distractions is not that difficult once you know how.
Now you know how.
So…go do and win!
Stay productive.