Have you ever gotten to Friday and realized that you by far didn’t accomplish a majority of the things that were on your to-do list? Or furthermore, because you’re so behind on those most important tasks you will have to spend a dreadful entire weekend, trying to make up for lost time? This is the worst. All of those fun plans you had now are simply just a dream for another time.
One of the biggest reasons that we are not able to achieve our goals is simple: We have way too many distractions.
Yes that’s it. Distractions are an evil that if not managed accordingly or ultimately eliminated altogether, will continue to take away your time, rob you of your best effort, and set you back.
So what are those distractions, anyway? Well, here are a few that come to mind in no specific order:
- Unproductive peers dropping by to chat
- Productive peers needing time to vent
- Someone else’s “emergency” situation that really isn’t that much of an emergency or that doesn’t require your immediate attention
- Cell phones
- Texts or notifications that come from apps
- Scattered workstyle and thoughts…easily sending texts to others, phone calls that could wait, random internet searching
- Social Media – Any form, any kind. Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Linked in, Pinterest…..
- Instant messenger or chats
- Podcasts, videos, or disturbing background noise
- News or sports updates
- Staying in your email inbox all the time
…
I’m sure there are others but you get the point.
The reality is that while each one of these distractions can seem not that big of a deal and only take a few seconds or no more than 5 minutes of your time, they add up.
For example, let’s say you spend 10 minutes on social media during your productive work times. If you do this once every two hours it ends up taking away 40 minutes out of your 8 hour day. 40 minutes!! Not counted in this calculation is the time it takes to mentally recover and get back into your task, writing, or analysis and regain focus. If you do this everyday during a 5-day week, that’s 3.3 hours of your productive time wasted. Now let’s add in the occasional daily distractions from friends or peers that happen (and I’m talking about the ones that really can’t wait), assume those are also 15 minutes once a day. In total, your social media time + chatting with peers = 4.6 hours a week.
And how do you make up for those 4.6 hours? For most, it is by trying to recover that time with late nights, all-nighters, or succumbing to full work weekends.
Is it really worth it?
ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS AND YOU WILL UNDOUBTEDLY INCREASE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND ACHIEVE MORE OF YOUR GOALS.
If you doubt this or even if you already know this, here’s your challenge for this week.
- Turn off all notifications from apps on your phone and from email.
- On your laptop or computer, exit out of all chats, social media, and even email accounts.
- Decide on a time (preferably over lunch or near the end of the day, whenever you are generally least productive) that you can use to devote to those friendly distractions from peers. Yep, the next time one drops by with anything that is not a true emergency, conversation relevant to your work, a request that you want to or have to help with, or anything that truly can’t wait until another time, you will kindly ask… “Do you mind if I come grab your during lunch or later this afternoon to catch up? I’m in a zone right now.”
- Silence, vibrate, or turn the ringer really low and put your phone and put away in your backpack, purse, or in a desk drawer.
- Quickly bounce back if you fall off at anytime during this week.
- Take inventory at the end of the week with how much of your to-do list or weekly goals were achieved.
If at the end of the week you find that none of this was helpful at achieving your goals, then unfortunately, I won’t suggest that resume with your normal activities of allowing all distractions. Seriously, if this was not helpful then we need to dig deeper to better understand what else is holding you back from achieving those weekly goals.
Renã AS Robinson, PhD
