5 Strategies to Defeat Distractions

Do you ever feel like you have so much to do, but when you sit down to get to work you don’t know where to begin? Do you ever feel like your thoughts and ideas are scattered and you can’t consolidate them to accomplish the task at hand? You are not alone in this my friend! So many of my students often feel the same way and the problem often stems from too many distractions making proper focus almost impossible!

Distractions come in many forms from physical clutter to “open loops” - endless unfinished tasks running circles in our mind - to external distractions like phone bleeps, and email alerts to the rabbit hole of the internet. By removing these distractions in a mindful way, you will be able to get to the business of focusing on getting things done. Below, I have put together 5 strategies to bust through distractions so that you can turbo boost your productivity and move forward in your business and your life. Shall we dive in?

1.  Create a Workspace That Works

Our lives are plagued by distractions from TV shows begging to be watched, washing that needs to be done, dogs begging to be walked and the other people in our house! If you want to get focused on what you’re doing, you first need the right place to work when working from home.  These are three things that you can start with:

1. Set aside a spot in your home as your work area, choosing a place that will help you focus and avoid distractions. It might be a spare room or even your kitchen table, but the important thing is to work from a desk rather than from bed or your couch.
2. Another important consideration is to make sure that you can sit comfortably, because otherwise, you'll probably find plenty of excuses to get up and go somewhere else! A high-quality office chair is one of the best investments you can make.
3. The other important piece of equipment is a door that you can close! It's almost impossible to work effectively at home if there are other people nearby. So, if you have the available space, be assertive and just shut out those potential distractions.  At the very least, arrange your work area so that distractions aren’t in your line of view – including any partner who’s also working from home.

For a deeper dive into how to get the most from your work space and set up the perfect work environment for you, check out my vlog 5 Steps to Fast Track Your Productivity.

2. Clear the Clutter

 
Your mind has to process everything that crosses your field of vision. If your home or work environment is cluttered and messy, the mess and clutter results in brain fog. You can’t work effectively or live thoughtfully in chaos. I suggest that every morning, you spend 5 minutes when you get to your work area just clearing up. You won’t believe how much you can get done in 5 minutes. At the end of the day do the same thing and spend 5 minutes tidying up to give yourself a head start for the next day.

3. Close The Open Loops

Have you heard of these before?  Open loops are the unresolved tasks that replay themselves over and over again in our minds:

The laundry needs to be done. The kids need to be picked up. I have a meeting tomorrow. I still have to pick up a wedding present.

I used to regularly feel confused and unmotivated until I realised that I had hundreds of open loops constantly replaying themselves in my mind. We carry these open loops throughout our days and weeks until they pile up and consume all of our mental and emotional energy and we’re left feeling drained and exhausted. To keep the frustration these small tasks can cause at bay, start writing down the open loops that keep replaying themselves in your head and develop a game plan to tackle a few each day. To learn more about resolving open loops, click here for 3 Steps to Close Open Loops.

4. Brain Dump

When you approach a task it may have a lot of moving parts or different elements that need to get done in order to see it finished. Sometimes, you might feel paralysed because there is so much to do and overwhelm sets in. The big distraction keeping you from getting work done here is your head and a great way to clear it is by doing a brain dump.

For 10 minutes, write down everything you need to get done and everything you want to accomplish. List it all out and get it out of your head and onto paper or onto your screen. When you get it all out, take a look at it and put it in order in terms of what needs to happen first, second, third etc. Then all you need to do is start at the beginning and keep going!

5. Eliminate notifications

How often does your computer or phone beep at you when you sit down to work?   You may be so used to the beeps and dings from your phone and the flashing messages on your computer screen that you don’t know how distracting they are. Did you know that it can take 15 minutes or more to recover from even a small distraction?

So what’s the solution?  When you realise that most of your distractions are self-imposed, it’s easier to eliminate them. Here are a few suggestions:

• When it comes to emails, messages, and calls, try to keep yourself well-balanced and do not allow yourself to look at every notification that pops up on your smartphone
• Think carefully about which notifications to keep on, and which to mute until later
• Allocate time slots for checking your phone or try using the various apps that allow you to block specific sites and applications on your phone for a certain period of time
• Another strategy is to turn off notifications completely
• If these methods aren’t enough and you can’t resist the pull of your devices, turn them off when you are doing other work or leave them in another room entirely

Lastly, try to focus exclusively on what you are doing. When you are writing, write. When you are doing the dishes, do the dishes. You don’t need TV, Instagram, Email, and 11 other things going on at the same time. Immerse yourself in the task at hand.

So there you have it. Hopefully these 5 strategies will help you get more productive by busting through your distractions so you can focus on doing the work that will generate big results in your business. What’s your worst distraction? I would love to hear about it in the comments below.

Committed to your success,

Marina x

P.S. Now that you are ready to focus, you may be wondering what you should do first. I have a solution for you, it’s my step-by-step process to identify the crucial activities you MUST focus on right now to get bigger results in your business (in less time).

With my FREE worksheet, 6 Easy Steps for Female Entrepreneurs to Get More Done in Less Time, you just follow the steps to get more big wins while spending less time and energy to make them happen. Just click the link below and get your free copy today!

6 Easy Steps for Female Entrepreneurs to Get More Done in Less Time