5 Hacks to help you Fight Distractions
Reading Time : 7 minutes
Day 15/30.
Happy Friday ya’ll! 🥳 I don’t know about all of you but I am certainly pumped to get this weekend started. Not that weekdays or weekends are any different - #QuarantineLife. But I have been trying to have as much of a routine as possible in the last couple of weeks. One of the reasons was that I was bored of Netflix (yep, too much too soon), and the other reason is that I am starting a new internship in 3 weeks time (YAYY!). The company is based in New York, so not only will I have to adjust my timings so my days can start earlier in PST, but will have to get used to being on a schedule, having meetings, getting some work done (I can’t wait for it tbh!).
Last week, I wrote a post about Getting Things Done during this Quarantine Season. I talked about having a routine, wearing pants and having an accountability buddy, among other hacks that have been helping me out so far. However, I will be lying if I say that I don’t get distracted every now and then. There are way too many movies to watch, shows to binge on, notifications to check & reply to, books to read, catching up on sleep - the list is endless. Being at home all day does not help because you are many times more likely to give in to any/all of these distractions.
However, I do think I have a few tricks up my sleeve that let me stay as productive as possible, and today I will share them with you :
Accept that you are distracted 👀
Lying to yourself is the worst thing you can do, especially in this situation. No one is judging you for being honest about distractions and the only way to work on your problem-areas is to accept that you have them in the first place. You wanting to read this article is also a step in the right direction so kudos to that! 😄I am not someone who can meditate - I have been trying but it is just so difficult for me. I have so many thoughts in my head at all times that keep wandering anywhere and everywhere. In one of the guided meditations, I learned a technique which told me to follow my wandering thoughts, be mindful of them, and bring them back to focus on my breathing. Great advice - and translates beautifully to distractions at work as well.
I let my mind wander when I am working. But I try to be as mindful of it as possible so that I can bring the focus back to my actual work and not let it wander too much. Granted, this takes time and practice and patience!
Keep your to-do list short 💯
In my last post on productivity, I talked about the importance of having a to-do list. One of the advantages of this list is to serve as motivation for you to check things off as quickly as possible, as many of the work items as possible. But if you put an unrealistic number of things to do on it, there is a very high possibility that the following thought will cross your mind : “How does it matter whether I work on this or not? I am not going to finish this list anyway!” whereas the thought we want is, “Only one more thing left to go - let me just finish it off!”. Do you notice the mindset shift just by virtue of how many things you put on the list?
Personally for me, 4 is a happy number. I am usually able to finish 3-4 tasks in a day by blocking my time appropriately. Maybe 5 if I am being extremely productive and noticing where all of my time is going. So I usually try to stick to 3-4 tasks maximum on my list. This number might vary for you, and you will only be able to find the sweet spot through trial & error. 🤷🏻♀️
Keep your to-do list visible 🙄
While we are at it, there is another thing about to-do lists - a hidden one is no good. To-do lists also serve as a visual reminder to get the work done so not only do I like to write them down on a physical notebook, but also on sticky notes and put them on my computer monitor. Having them constantly in-my-face helps me know there is work to be done. I usually write all individual tasks on separate stickies and keep taking taking them off as I complete them. I know its a waste of paper, but baby steps at a time. I don’t order physical books anymore. (Have you read my post about reading from a Kindle?)
Take frequent, timed breaks 🔜
Breaks are so important - especially because the attention span of us as humans is not great. Common estimates for sustained attention to a freely chosen task range from about 5 minutes for a two-year-old child, to a maximum of around 20 minutes in older children and adults. So convincing yourself to work for hours in one go is not going to do you any good. Instead, if you plan your breaks effectively, you will be more motivated to work done in the time allotted to do so while looking forward to the next mini-break.
A short version of this suggestion is to use the pomodoro method, but I am a rebel and 25 minutes just doesn't work for me. 🤷🏻♀️I usually work for 40-45 minutes, and then take a quick 5 minute break (which I use to pee, make some coffee, talk to my husband but I really strongly try to stay away from looking at my phone notifications because that my friends, is a downward slope).
Log out of all online distractions 🙅🏻♀️
I cannot begin to stress how important this is. We, as humans, always take the path of least resistance. If you are logged into your social media on your computer and all it will take for you to mindlessly be able to scroll through your instagram feed is to open a new tab ▶️ open instagram.com ▶️ scroll to your hart’s content, of course you’re going to do it. But just adding that one extra step of typing your email address and password might deter you - and this is the hack I use. I am not logged into any of my social media on my laptop. So even if I try to log into instagram, but the time I try to put in my ID password, my senses kick in and I close the tab, get back to work.
I am not going to lie about not being logged into the same apps on my phone - I am always online, always logged in. I have read at multiple places that people keep their phones in a different room to avoid distraction. I don’t do that either. However, my phone is always silent and face down on my desk. I also try to keep it away from my line of sight so that I don’t get tempted to see my notifications. Once I see my notifications, I’ll want to respond to each of them and that ruins the whole purpose. I also try to keep it at the further end of the desk, and that works too - I am too lazy to extend my arm and grab it most of the time.
I know this period is tough and staying motivated is tougher, but trust me, you are strong enough to get through it :) Work can be boring sometimes, even worse, extremely difficult - so it becomes much easier put it off for another day. But I hope that some of these tricks help you, let me know if you try any of them in the comments below. If not, leave a hack the works for you in the comments for me to try! 😉 Annnnd don’t forget to enjoy your weekend!
