“Distractions…”
Shared by Breanne Smedley
It’s comical how quickly a 1-year old can become distracted.
One moment, Charlee is trying to chase Ruby the cat around the house, and not 20 seconds later she becomes fascinated with a piece of carpet on the ground.
I’ll be standing not 15 feet away from her as she’s walking towards me, only for her to stop after about 5 feet because the chair just looks too interesting to continue.
It’s like she is seeing each of these new objects for the first time.
And they are all more important than what she was previously doing. They deserve her full attention.
What was interesting 10 minutes ago is now strewn across the living room floor. Now abandoned for the rabbit hole that is the tupperware drawer.
While I find it funny, I can relate.
I sit down to get to work on a project.
However, the email tab is up so I might as well check that.
Respond to a few messages.
Open a few emails that send me to interesting articles.
Oh, an email from Amazon.
That reminds me I need to update my subscribe and save this month.
Then, the next 10 minutes are searching Amazon for things that I “need” to get that 15% subscribe and save discount.
Or, pick up my phone with the intention to respond to a message.
10 minutes later, somehow, I’m looking at the Instagram account of the sister-in-law of a friend I went to high school with.
What? How did this happen?
Just like a 1-year old, I get distracted.
Distractions that lead to 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there.
That eventually adds up to a day feeling unproductive.
Leave me saying, “I did things today, but what did I actually accomplish?”
I’ve set a few “rules” that have been helpful to avoid going down the rabbit hole of unproductivity.
1. Check email at a set time, and only then. For me, this means in the morning (after I’ve completed my routine of reading and writing), mid-day, and evening.
Respond to emails the first time I see them.
No reading and thinking “I’ll respond to that later.”
No email tab always open.
No mindless email checking.
2. Most notifications, and all badges disabled on my phone (badges are the red dots with numbers on them that tell you about a notification in an app).
I read an article recently that has completely changed the way I use my phone. It was titled, “How to configure your iPhone to work for you, not against you: The Very, Very Complete Guide to Productivity, Focus, and Your Own Longevity.” In it, the author says,
“Notifications are uncontrolled interruptions from your real goals. They prevent you from ever getting into a flow state. You should be in control of what you do and when — not your phone.”
Regarding the red badges, he says,
“Those red dots cause anxiety, and anxiety causes health problems like heart disease. It’s not hyperbole that I talked about life expectancy in the title of this post. Not specific to red dots, but mild anxiety was shown to increase mortality by 20% over a ten year period.”
Having my phone configured this way allows me to check email or social media intentionally, and not get the unnecessary anxiety associated with seeing that I have 47 unread emails.
These tricks aren’t fool-proof. But, they’ve helped.
More than anything, they’ve brought awareness to doing things intentionally, rather than passively scrolling when I’m subconsciously avoiding tasks.
Now, to get into a deep workflow while a 1-year old is up and moving around?
That’s a nut I have yet to crack.
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#MindfullyEvolving
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