Dealing with Distraction

Distraction is what keeps us from doing our work. It stops us from achieving our goals. Most of us get some information and ideas from the internet that eliminating helps us to conquer distraction and achieve our goals. But that’s not true most of the time i.e. when we eliminate mindlessly.

I too get distracted from time to time but have learned some techniques to deal with it after paying a huge price of going anti-social and eliminating.

Create a To-Do List Every Night for the Next Day

While you create a To-Do list make sure you’re writing only 2 or 3 major goals. Make it short. While you brainstorm, ask yourself what are the goals that will make you satisfied throughout the day if you complete it. Write those major goals. I am saying this because you can end up with one whole big list of things to do and you’ll get overwhelmed easily, which means your brain will get distracted to easy stuffs. Our brain tends to get distracted when we have huge pile of undone work.

Complete Your Goals

After you see your goals make sure that you open your laptop or computer to complete your goal. Don’t surf the internet mindlessly. Make sure you don’t open any social networking sites or anything along those lines.

Don’t Surf Mindlessly

It only takes around 3 seconds to get distracted. So, Make a commitment that you won’t open your Facebook account or Twitter account until you complete your work. That will make you want to complete your work quicker which will help you accomplish your goal.

Keep Reminders

You could keep alarm reminders every hour to keep yourself in track. It helps a lot. For some people, public accountability works great. You can write what your goals are on your blog or social networking sites. After you write, you’ll feel the urgency to complete the work or at least start the work. Then you’ll get in track but you should always remember that no matter what there will be days when you get distracted. You can minimize it but you can’t eliminate it.

Let Yourself Get Distracted Some Days

View distraction as it is and take it normally. Everyone gets distracted and you will too. It’s not good to view it in a negative sense, rather learn to deal with it effectively. After working too much I get distracted easily. Maybe our brain needs some refreshments from time to time. So it tries to run away from work. It’s human nature to procrastinate.

Don’t Eliminate People Forever (Important)

Most people make the mistake of thinking that if they eliminate everything, they will get more free time to work. But they don’t realize that it’s hurting them and their lives because of lack of socialization. Not only socialization, human beings need company to stay with. You can’t live alone, no matter what. We were designed to live in society with people. If you don’t believe me then watch I am Legend.
You eliminate those people and when you realize the price you are paying for it, it’ll be too late. That has happened to me before. I kept on reading zen habits and other minimalistic blogs and thought that eliminating people will help me but it back fired on me. I didn’t have anyone to go out with nor did I have company to stay with. I lost most of my friends. It’s true that eliminating will help you but you’ve got to control it and take some time to connect with them. Maybe once a week or once a month and it’s also true that eliminating people that’s harming your work will help you achieve your goals faster. But the problem is that we often don’t realize those people because while we eliminate, we won’t think of all the difference those people have made us on our lives. Everyone is helping you one way or the another and you aren’t aware of it. It might be really small difference but they are making a difference in your life just like we are making a difference in this world – at least in a small way. We can limit the hours we spend with them but eliminating completely is a bad idea. Most people regret not spending time with their old friends at the end of their lives. Those golden moments will fall down and never come back. You won’t have the privilege to spend your life with people you value or love. You connect with people when you read that you need more connection and networking, and you disconnect from people when you read that you need to eliminate to follow your dreams. If you are doing this then that’s a clear message that you don’t know how to deal with it and you just believe anything you read without evidence. That’s really bad.

So, this all sums up to this:

• ONLY Eliminate harmful people who do no good for you.
• Keep in touch with your friends and family from time to time so that you will balance the equation (Make sure you are not paying a huge price which will back fire you very hard.)

It’s how I view and has worked for me but it doesn’t necessarily need to be the same for you. You might have your own way of dealing with it and you probably know what you need to do to achieve your goal. Sometimes we know it but we make the mistake of not implementing it. If that’s true for you then start implementing. Since it takes very little time to get distracted we must be aware of it every time. Especially we tend to get distracted when we have works we don’t like to do.