Ever had that feeling when you get to the end of a day and realized you haven’t really accomplished anything?
You went into it with the best of intentions. You had a mighty to-do list, and you told yourself, “Hello new day. Prepare to be pwned.” You have that cup of coffee and you set out on your quest of efficiency.
Several tweets, wall updates, blog comments and emails later – it is lunch time. Well…. I guess that was work. But, I’ll get the REAL work done after lunch. Yeah…
Later, you sit down to write that blog post. A couple paragraphs in, you end up on somebody else’s blog. You like this post, so you comment. Then, you get an idea and you spend a little time dreaming and jotting down ideas. Then – back to the blog post. Then, your side vision catches that Twitter column refresh. You look and – wow, that link looks interesting! So, you click.
And so it goes. The day comes to an end. You might have written a blog post or two. You might have made a few lists, telling yourself that making a list was the same as work. But, then the overwhelming weight of reality sets in…
None of what you did that day will make you any money.
My War On Distractions
If you think I began writing this post today as a means of teaching you something I’ve figured out, think again. I deal with the above scenario all too often. Each time, I give myself a mental slap and vow to do better the next day. But, I’m tired of reaching the end of a work week with that nagging feeling that I haven’t accomplished enough.
So, I need to renew my war on distractions.
In this post, I’m going to offer my advice to you. As I do it, I’m also reminding myself. Funny how that works… 
I’m going to address the major sources of distraction for bloggers. And they are…
Social Media
Twitter and Facebook have very legitimate uses. They also happen to be huge vacuums for our time and attention.
Twitter is a huge platform of people yelling into the crowd. We assume everybody is paying attention to us when we tweet, but in reality very few are. Most aren’t paying any attention, and even those who are are too busy going cross-eyed because of the blinding speed of it all. So, you might get 50-100 clicks on a link to 10,000 followers. Worth it? Hmmm…. pretty crappy open rate when you compare it to email.
But, let’s assume you just decide to take control over it. You keep Tweetdeck out of view and you just check it every so often. Still, every time you check it, you are inviting potential time vacuums. Or perhaps you feel this little draw to it because you’re wondering what people are up to… and even that little bit of stuck attention is keeping you from full focus on what you’re doing.
Perhaps you put your social media onto a side monitor, and not in your primary workspace. Fine, but then the Tweetdeck column refreshes and you see it in your peripheral vision. And, you feel compelled to check it out.
Or you’re out with your family, where you’re SUPPOSED to be enjoying THEM and living your life… but you feel compelled to check Twitter and tell people what you’re doing. So, basically, a little part of you is constantly thinking that your followers GIVE A SHIT. And, hell, maybe they do. But, your family – your LIFE – is probably more important, right? Worse yet, you’ve turned your own life into a spectator sport, constantly dissecting your life for tidbits that are “tweetworthy” – rather than just living.
And don’t get me started on Facebook. That site is engineered with a specific purpose – to keep you there once you enter it.
So, you might think that, after all this, I’m pretty down on social media. Not at all! However, I think we all need to keep it in perspective. With the way some of us use it, it ends up being a cancer on our mental focus. In the end, it is probably the single biggest source of ADD for bloggers. No wonder some of the most successful people in this world don’t mess around with Twitter!
My advice? Turn it off and enforce a strict discipline on yourself to only check it at certain times of the day, with a timer to make sure you stop after a certain block of time goes by (perhaps 15 minutes). Perhaps explore using Hootsuite, where you can easily schedule tweets. Don’t make it fake, where you act like you’re there and you really aren’t. But, if a lot of what you do on Twitter is tweet out cool blog posts you’ve found, then just schedule them. So, you spend 15-30 minutes reading your RSS reader and scheduling tweets to your favorites – then you MOVE ON. Not any different than when you queue blog posts in WordPress.
And when you’re supposed to be actually accomplishing something – CLOSE all social media sites and programs. Don’t minimize them or move them to another screen – CLOSE THEM.
Like social media, the purposes of email are plainly obvious and extremely useful. That said, you can also become a mental slave to it.
Most people will check email constantly. If you see that little “(1)” next to your inbox, or hear that little chime when an email arrives, you feel compelled to go check it. Whatever you were doing right then, you stop. Your attention is scattered. And when you finally return to what you were doing, it takes you some time to get back into the groove again. Do this over and over, and you NEVER arrive in that groove in the first place. You’re constantly scattered. You spin your wheels and nothing happens.
Email is important, in most cases, dealing with email is not the same thing as production. It is maintenance.
Like social media, email should be relegated to time slots and not touched in between.
Funny thing, as I wrote those very words, I noticed I had Gmail open. Shame on me! So, I closed the email tab of my browser while I’m writing this post. Because I KNOW that, were I to get an email right then, my eyes would have gone to see who it was. And, for that little moment of time, I stopped writing this very post.
I can tell you from experience, though, that this is a KEY point when it comes to increasing your writing speed and making sure blog posts don’t take hours to write. You’ve got to get into that mental groove and just let the words flow. And that means cutting off all sources of distraction.
Instant Messaging
Some people have it worse than others, but instant messaging can be pretty bad. Think about it… you are giving anybody on your buddy list the means to proactively interrrupt you with a window on your screen – any time THEY want. Excuse me? I mean, nothing personal – people wouldn’t be on my contact list if I didn’t care about them, but that doesn’t mean I want them popping windows in my face when I’m trying to work.
In my view, any communication system we set up is not being managed correctly if we’re not in control over when that communication arrives in our heads. This is why I don’t like phones. It can interrupt you whenever somebody ELSE wants to. I switched to Google Voice so I could control that.
Well, instant messaging is the same way. Plus, we’ve probably all experienced IM spam. It seems to come in waves on Skype, where people can just pop windows on my screen because they feel as if I should check out their great rack. Hmmm…..
How you choose to manage instant messaging is up to you. Luckily for me, most of my contacts are in the same boat as I am, so we don’t interrupt each other all that often. But, whenever I feel as if it might be a distraction, I sign off of instant messaging networks. And, I always make sure that I get NO notifications when people come online or go offline. I simply don’t need to know.
Other Blogs
As bloggers, we feel the need to keep up with other bloggers. Plus, it is interesting. That said…. you can’t eat and talk at the same time. Same goes for reading blogs.
I find it sometimes amazing when I see some of my fellow bloggers tweeting links to cool posts throughout the day. Unless they pre-scheduled those things, that means that they were not only reading another blog rather than working, but they were on social media. Double whammy against productivity.
Surely, I cannot recommend not to read other blogs. It is important to do it, to a point. I can tell you that I probably read other people’s blogs less than the average blogger. But, of course, I make more money than the average blogger, so I’ll leave you to decide if there might be a correlation.
Having a device like an iPad also helps me. On it, I can check up on others’ blogs when I am in a different mode. In other words, I’m not working. So, I will scan my RSS reader perhaps while I’m in bed at night, but not while I’m sitting at my desk during work time.
If you don’t have an iPad, that’s fine. Just impose some discipline. If you want to be productive during your work time, you shouldn’t be reading people’s blogs. That’s not work. It is fake work.
Your Work Environment
Your immediate physical environment also has a lot to do with your effeciency. It can also be a challenging thing to manage, especially if you have kids as I do.
In my case, I simply do the best I can to keep the kids away from my office. My kids are young and loud, so we do what we can. If it gets too bad, I’ll need to leave the house and work. I might explore getting an outside office, or perhaps just set up shop at a local coffee shop.
I also keep my office clean. I dust and vacuum once per week. I remove all the loose ends from my desk. I like to begin every week with a clean slate.
Declare War
There is a lot more that goes into personal effeciency than what I’ve talked about today. It is one thing to remove the negatives, but it is another to introduce the systems to guide all that mental focus you will have at your disposal once you’ve stopped the distractions from preying on it.
But, we’ve got to start somewhere. As bloggers, we are more prone to attention deficit than many others. Our eyes are constantly darting around to many things at once, all of which are listed above. No wonder so many bloggers feel like they’re spinning their wheels and not getting anywhere!
Personally, I’m declaring war. I’ll still be doing social media, email, IM and other blogs, but it’ll be controlled.
Because dicking around with Twitter doesn’t serve you, my audience. And, as a result, it doesn’t serve my family very well. We need the bills paid, and my kids like to eat…. and tweeting doesn’t do that.
So, here’s what I’d like you to do…
I’d like you to post a comment, and let me know what things YOU can do better at to remove unnecessary distractions. What can you do to be more productive? And, what tips do you have for others in the community to help them?
David has been blogging for 15 years, and generating a six-figure income at it for the last 12. He is the founder of Blog Marketing Academy. 
David Risley has been building and operating authority blogs for 15 years, and operating a six-figure business doing it for a decade.
Where I get into the most trouble is when I finish one to-do and am transitioning into the next. Popping onto twitter, facebook, email for a just a peek and next thing I know, the morning’s gone. Hate that. And, sometimes I run into really really good things, for instance, this hear blog post of yours!
So, what I’m going to do is revive my rss reader and quit relying on catching the latest on twitter. It’s hit or miss at best anyway. Then, create blocks of time to read other blogs, post comments, and schedule tweets on those posts. Thanks, David.
Priority, Priority and Priority first. Each day I go to my office I set up a goal of working on certain files which is essentially what I do for a living. After I finished with that project I feel free to move onto something else – working on my new project, reading the book, tweet for 10-15 minutes and let FB followers know what I doing in the office. I can’t get away from alemails as I get streamline of referrals via email system. I refuse to write info down when
I am on the phone. Great Post
Awesome advice — I could relate to it all, whether from my time working in offices, or now as a travel blogger. I’d been thinking about my dire state of productivity recently, and just drafted a post on the subject from the perspective of a location independent professional.
For me it all comes back to a renewed sense of discipline: work first, fun stuff second. At least if I can do a few hours of work each morning, I can feel good about enjoying the free time my current lifestyle affords. I’ve also begun to use social media time as a reward for getting my writing and photo editing done. For example, spend an hour writing a blog post, give myself time to check in on Twitter and Facebook. But I need to be better about limiting that time, like you suggest!
Hi Dave,
Yup, should be writing some server stuff for my blog but I am here.
My distraction isn’t Twitter, Face Book, etc. It is my Grand Daughter.
I baby sit her four days a week because I work from home and it helps the kids.
To keep the distractions to a minimum I use Microsoft’s Desktops.
A neat program that has for distinct desktops. Small memory foot print for the program but you can get carried away with the number of programs you have open at one time so I wouldn’t suggest anyone using it with an older processor that isn’t a multiple core.
I have my ‘communications’ programs open on the first desktop (twitter, IE, Outlook).
On the second desktop is my Web editing software and graphics programs.
The third desktop I use for my file management.
The fourth is for anything else.
When I am writing I don’t get distracted by Twitter updates, email, or anything else.
There is a small draw back to this setup, you have to click on the tray Icon to change to another desktop.
Now where did I put…
Hi Dave,
Yup, should be writing some server stuff for my blog but I am here.
My distraction isn’t Twitter, Face Book, etc. It is my Grand Daughter.
I baby sit her four days a week because I work from home and it helps the kids.
To keep the distractions to a minimum I use Microsoft’s Desktops.
A neat program that has for distinct desktops. Small memory foot print for the program but you can get carried away with the number of programs you have open at one time so I wouldn’t suggest anyone using it with an older processor that isn’t a multiple core.
I have my ‘communications’ programs open on the first desktop (twitter, IE, Outlook).
On the second desktop is my Web editing software and graphics programs.
The third desktop I use for my file management.
The fourth is for anything else.
When I am writing I don’t get distracted by Twitter updates, email, or anything else.
There is a small draw back to this setup, you have to click on the tray Icon to change to another desktop.
Now where did I put…
You know David, I like to switch up the places that I perform my work from. When I find a spot that is working for me for the moment, I tend to get stuck there, and after a few days/weeks I return to losing a little bit of productivity.
Thanks for declaring the war and bringing it back to my attention
Cheers
David,
Funny that this post hits..
honestly, I haven’t been reading your column, probably mostly due to the fact that I’m subscribed to a LOT of blogs, and it just is way too much to read…(read..NOISE)..so I’m honing them down (less distractions too) and as a learning IM person, there is way too much information, and lack of action, at least speaking for myself.
This goes deeper into our society though…not to get on a chair and pontificate, but have you noticed how HARD it is to actually concentrate now? I mean, even if everything is off, you almost WANT more things on…like we can ONLY multitask now…speaking for myself at least, I get bored if there aren’t multiple things going on…good or bad? I’m not sure…
I did see a great study done on Harvard students who claimed to be MASTER multitaskers, and the proof showed that they were not. They actually got less done, had less complete reports or papers, and really suffered at the fault of blackberries, iPhones and such.
I tried a recent experiment, I did a puzzle with my wife. She is a nurse and takes care of Alzheimer’s patients… So we did this puzzle, and it took me a good 30 minutes to turn off my multitasking habits…and just relax and look for puzzle pieces. It was a good self study to see how addicted we can be to multitasking. Interesting.
Don’t normally post such long answers, hope it helps someone.
Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I think many of these tools are actually conditioning us to require that high level of input, which then pulls our attention everywhere. It means people don’t confront things as well. Or they use these tools as crutches to avoid confronting things.
It is strange that doing one thing at a time is really a skill, but it turns out that it is.
I’ve tried to declare numerous times before and failed, just as you have in the past.
One of the things that distracts me is that I sit in front of the TV with my laptop, TV on and that sucks my time away when I notice something interesting online. Now I’ve shifted to sitting at the kitchen table (I don’t have a desk) and that gets me a lot more focus on work. I like the radio on, but I don’t put it up high so that it’s a background not a foreground to my thoughts.
I’ll have to work on the no social media/IM/email issue. It’s a big one with me too.
Oh yeah, TV can suck the attention, too. Even radio. I listen to music when I work a lot, but I don’t have to think about that.
Music seems to get me if all the channels are turned on, even if the volume is low; so I typically just leave the center on and everything else off and that seems to help
I use focus booster during my breaks to time myself. If I pass the 20 minute mark then I’ve been procrastinating to long and need to go get some work done. I try to only look at facebook & twitter during my morning breakfast, lunch and after I am done work for the day. Of course it doesn’t always work out that way…
One thing I think people need to do is understand their routine. Once they understand that, I think they can start to streamline quite a bit. One thing i’ve found is that I can do everything I need to do in 2-3 hours if I shut off distractions completely. The other thing I think people need to do is make a record of when they are most productive and when they hit a flow state. In a flow state you can produce a significantly larger chunk of work/content. I’ve had days where I’ve literally written a weeks worth of content in 2-3 hours. I also think that all “real work” (i.e. writing, strategy, or doing anything creative ) should be the first thing you do everyday while administrative stuff (i.e. email, etc) should be done after the real work is done.
Good stuff. And I love that term “flow state”. Heard it before, but it always resonates with me because of just how literally true it is, on an energy level.
One thing I think people need to do is understand their routine. Once they understand that, I think they can start to streamline quite a bit. One thing i’ve found is that I can do everything I need to do in 2-3 hours if I shut off distractions completely. The other thing I think people need to do is make a record of when they are most productive and when they hit a flow state. In a flow state you can produce a significantly larger chunk of work/content. I’ve had days where I’ve literally written a weeks worth of content in 2-3 hours. I also think that all “real work” (i.e. writing, strategy, or doing anything creative ) should be the first thing you do everyday while administrative stuff (i.e. email, etc) should be done after the real work is done.
I’ve found that as soon as I start getting sucked into the vacuum it generally doesn’t stop. I re-emerge an hour later without having really accomplished anything besides reading a bunch of tweets, blogs, and wiki articles. To stop myself from this cycle I use a blocker on Google Chrome to block my primary distraction sites, Focus Booster, WriteRoom for Mac, and try to avoid checking e-mail obsessively. I agree with Srini though on the flow state. I’m going to take his advice and start recording what triggers lead me to reach that point.
We seriously live in a very distraction-oriented world. I just changed my phone over to a droid so I have all my information with me, but I also have my phone automatically shut down at 10pm. I don’t answer my personal phone at work (unless it is family). In essence, I don’t take personal calls during working hours, only business. I don’t IM, tweet, or keep up with social media during working hours and catch up with personal message and my reading in my own personal time. I actually enjoy reading material like this when I’m relaxing and my time is my own anyway.
All the things you discussed is managing time, use, and misuse like we did with our kids with tv (yeah, when too much tv was THE big deal) is the same principle with these various technological distractions.
The best suggestion is exactly what you said, when working, shut everything else off and out. It will still be there when you get back. But, still, it sure is entertaining!
Thanks for sharing your perception to an increasing challenge.
-Layne
What really helps me eliminate distractions and increase my productivity are Google calender and Google Docs. Without these two tools, I would be lost and very unorganized
Same here. I use Google stuff so much its insane.
Awesome post David,
Just what I’m facing. My major problem has been emails, I have been able to overcome the twitter and Facebook problem but I keep on checking my emails. One thing I do when writing is to write in Microsoft Word, and close my browser, this will make sure I finish writing before I go back online.
Good post, let’s see my biggest time waster is commenting on other blogs and/or clicking on a link which goes to another link and another and another link …
Except for commenting on THIS blog, of course.
Right
Oh how I needed this post and the irony is that I found it while being distracted by Twitter.
I’ve been blogging ten months now and have been traveling for eight of them and productivity is an issue. I’m trying to grow readership so I’m easy prey for time suckers.
In the last month or so I’ve been trying to set daily limits for Twitter (30 mins) and Facebook and I’ve also started allocating days to activities. For example I catch up on my RSS reader Mondays and Fridays rather than reading it every day. I’m hoping this helps me become a bit more focused.
I’d like to get it down to a quick 1.5 hours in the morning and 30 minutes at night to just check in.
Great post David. My basic productivity strategy is to just group communication (email, IM, social networks, blogs, news) into a few chunks throughout the day, and keep them closed the rest of the time. Just “disconnecting” from the communication channels improves efficiency.
Absolutely.
I can identify with everything you’ve said here, my morning was super productive, had a 15 minute break and I’m fiddling around instead of keeping the momentum going, e mail check, twitter check, give myself a mental slap, blog posting check
The trouble is it’s just to easy to get sidetracked for all the to do lists, timers, e mail and social media only twice a day
I will look at how your other contributors deal with it because we all need help here
Thanks for sharing Tony
Yeah, we all do.
Just this morning, I got sidetracked into researching scanners after a post by John Chow. Dammit! 
That said, it’ll be a time-saver for me later. But, still.
Making a systematic work everyday and sticking to it may avoid distractions. Like in making money online, I thinks it’s better to do first the things that will bring us huge returns of our time and make the least last in priority.
My biggest time waster is my messy office space. I have my half implemented David Allen GTD system in my peripheral. When I look at the things in the inbox I get energized and start to process the first one. But it’s so full I can’t do them all, I’ll go back to working… Maybe I should move that stack out of sight.
I have had some success with using the timer on my iPod. I set it for 90% of the time I have to work. I put on classical music (can’t sing along and get distracted) and work until the timer goes off. After the timer goes off I clean up my work space and then have a little time set for being distracted.
Posting a comment admits to you that I am reading your blog instead of working though
The past two days I have been seriously spinning my wheels. I’m trying to think of what I’ve done that is majorly productive the past two days and coming up with nada.
I don’t have the option to keep the kids away since I am a stay at home mom and if a diaper needs to be changed…it’s all me.
The rest of this, I can (and should) do.
It’s tough to know where to divide your focus just starting out though. I personally think I *should* spend more time in social media than you…because I need to go get my readers. You already have them, I do not (I mean I have some…I need more though!). Scheduling it though, isn’t a bad idea. It would also probably give my followers a predictable time to get a hold of me there.
Thanks for the food for thought this morning!
Well, my first distraction was reading your blog, David, and the second is writing this comment. Hmmm. Good advice and I know that it’s very difficult to dial down the frenzy of multi-tasking. Re blogging, I find that if I’m passionate about my subject, I can knock out a blog pretty quickly, and it’s a good one because my heart is in it. I struggle and find reasons to go to the refrigerator and check email when I’m not confident in the blog I’m writing. So, that might be a reality check for some people — are you writing something that just flows because you know it’s good or is to meet an artificial schedule you’ve imposed on yourself to blog every (fill in the blank)?
All too true. As I write this I’m resisting clicking over to TweetDeck to “see what’s going on.”
I’m ashamed to admit I’ve had several days where I’ve felt like I got absolutely nothing accomplished. I know I read a lot of blogs though. Far too many. But honestly the next day I probably couldn’t tell you what my takeaways were.
Someone mentioned earlier that they compose all of their posts in word on full screen mode. This is great and works with any program. If you want to get things done, make it so you have to completely focus on that one thing.
This is one of the reasons I have a netbook. The only program I have on it is MS Word for writing. It’s also intentionally not powerful enough to run anything cool – true barebones system. When I want to write I’ll take that sucker to my kitchen table, a coffee shop, Subway, etc, just somewhere away from everything and just pump out content for a couple of hours – with the wireless turned OFF.
I sometimes go as far as to go somewhere I know I won’t be able to pick up a wireless signal. Those are usually my most productive times.
It’s incredible how much you can get done in an hour with just a little bit of focus.
geez! social media, other blogs, email and IM. My goodness! It is either of those things…
I have battled with these exact issues. Not so much on Twitter. As you said, it doesn’t have the biggest ROI. Add that I am new to it and have a small following, it is truly isn’t as valuable. I have my blog posts automatically set to post so I limit my time there.
I go on FB to post my articles as well. Except for the forums that I regularly post at, I find FB the biggest bang for my buck. However, I only spend enough time to post my articles and maybe comment on a few other people’s post.
Email is my worst when it come to my ADD mind. I am getting better, but if that email come from someone I have been waiting to hear from, my entire day is turned up-side-down.
I am only on Skype when I have to communicate. It isn’t me, but the group that I chat with. I chat with clients that I write content for, and they will bother me while I am working on their articles. And the chat isn’t alway work related.
All in all, I learned to minimize the distractions. It is an endless war, but I am always finding ways to minimize my distractions.
Thanks for the confirmation as this is all too true. I just talked about the clutter in my life and mind in my new blog yesterday. I’m fairly new to social media and find that trying to keep up with all of it distracts me from other important aspects of my job, which includes handling the social media of the company. At the end of week I look back and feel that I’ve been very unproductive.
In trying to embrace social media and get a feel for it, I’m overdoing is and if I don’t step back and get in under control now, I’ll burn out and drop all of it.
Thanks again for the post and the tips.
I struggle with this constantly. I have so many agendas; so many things that I’m trying to accomplish – but I only get to maybe 50% of what I plan. Great idea, and I’m definitely going to put this into practice (right after I go and check out TweetDeck one last time…)
Awesome post, and right on target David! It hits home, and funny enough, now I feel like a victim to the very thing we hate just by being here…
The first part of the post is exactly how I feel. Some Mac Apps help:
- Vitamin-R or Pomodoro – a timer that helps you to focus in a set time slice.
- Scrivener full screen mode, Omm Writer, WriterRoom or Dark Copy – Helps you to focus just on writing.
There are also apps that blocks out facebook and other distractions. Like they say, there’s an app for that.
Good stuff as always Dave.
My favorite line is that we have turned our lives into a spectator sport. It’s like permission based voyeurism.
I’m writing a book right now, and let me tell you that this stuff can murder what I get done. I’ve found that I am brilliant in short spurts. No more than 30 minutes of concentrated writing at a time. After that, I take a quick walk, clear my head, or allow myself a few indulgances on the social media front.
Whatever it is, I don’t allow that break to go beyond 15 minutes. Using these small scheduling blocks is how I keep myself on track.
I tweet out links to blog posts using hootsuite so it seems that I’m on every couple of hours but truth is I may be at the church building with my husband or attending to lunch or something else (nowhere near the computer). I love that I can schedule these things like I can schedule my blog posts. Then I go on every so often and retweet or respond or greet a few people then I’m off.
I don’t use IM anymore. I hardly open skype until it’s necessary. I schedule 15 minute increments to check my email(about 3 or so times a day) and to read blogs(once a day).
The area that I’m going to work on is to clear my desk and the surroundings in our home office. I pretty much do most of the things you outlined here so that one is a biggy for me. I’ve had to force myself to do the points you outlined because otherwise I would sink with all the ministry obligations, homeschool obligations, keeping the home, marriage, etc (and those are only the necessary things). I had to cut off all unnecessary offers to do this or that. I’m getting there. Like I said next step clear my desk and declutter the home office.
This post helped to encourage me to continue to wage the war against distractions. Thanks.
Thanks for this post, great points. I do a few things to save time and help stay on track. I like to write my blog posts over the weekend when it’s quieter. Advance publishing saves me a lot of time during the week. Then, I go by the rule of 5 for weekdays. I try for 5 postings across platforms, connect with 5 new people, cross 5 things off my list. It works for me, but if I get backed up, I find waking up super early in the am really helps to catch up, before any of the day’s distractions can kick in.
Great tips there Carrie…really like your Rule of 5 rule. I actually used to use a rule just like that once and it went to the wayside; think will pick it up a again.
Thanks for the reminder.
It’s taken me 9 attempts just to scan this blog. Just sayin…
You’re absolutely right, Twitter hasn’t really gotten me anywhere. Either I’m doing it wrong, or it’s just not that effective. Facebook to a much lesser degree. I’m a victim of closing Facebook and Twitter only to re-open them because I left my email open and got an email with a new Facebook or Twitter message only to re-open them again. Thanks for pointing out that my blog is not actually affected if I don’t reply to that comment right away. I don’t have any tips for anyone other than to follow your advice!
The post is great. So are the comments, but perhaps I should not have read them. OTOH, I always start the day by reading email (whence the link to this post). Some commenter suggested administrative stuff only after creative stuff. Maybe I should mass delete junk mail and then write something. As far as Twitter is concerned, I schedule tweets with Twaitter (which I like better than Hootsuite), but sometimes feel guilty for not spending enough time just reading and responding to tweets. I get to that maybe twice a week. Now I’ll not feel guilty about that! OK back to writing right now.
I am an early riser and try to get a couple hours of production in before anyone in the house wakes up, or I turn my attention to anything else. Well other than making coffee that is.
Emails were my undoing. I would get caught up in reading them and taking different links to blogs and/or articles and before I knew it hours would have past. So now I focus on my planned tasks before I even peek at anything else. It took some discipline, but it is pretty much habit now.
In fact I have a post it note on the bottom of my monitor that reminds me to write before I hit the internet.
I actually got rid of my second monitor. That cut down on distractions a lot.
Very well said David. As If you have read my situation. When I browse with firefox, sometimes, I have 15 tabs open and some of them I have not read for more than a month. They stay there because I do not close firefox, I end task it, so that I will get all the tabs as it is, when I open firefox, next time.
When I was reading your article, I checked my gmail and twitter accounts twice and then I realised the essence of your article, so I closed twitter and gmail tab. I will surely follow what you say and try to remain disconnected during a fixed time of my day. I think we have become slaves of technology.
Thanks
Manish
I am add and i hace i hard time focusing i believe i purposefylly distract myself i am going to try to hide all the things that sistract me from myself!
I hate those kind of days but it happens now and then.
Your Work Environment
Great post David, when I read your post it sounds funny but reality bites it really happens for real. I believe that there is one thing that can help a person to avoid distractions at work easily and it is self discipline. Without discipline you can’t really focus on your tasks now matter how you struggle to focus you can still be distracted. I would say that you can really avoid distractions without discipline but for how long you can manage it. There are also useful tools that can helps you avoid distractions while working like blocking unrelated website for a period of time this way you can focus on task. You can also make it as a motivation; you can use social media or any unrelated to work website as long as you finish all your tasks first or you can use it after work. There are different ways that can help you avoid distractions at work.