Dealing With Distractions

potentialeight

potentialeight

Expert Gambling Writer
Oct 30, 2010
2,201
41
0
NC
www.potentialeight.com
I figure there's a good number of you guys who are into GTD and/or who are active about productivity in general. Are any of you super proactive about heading off distractions before they occur?

I wrote a blog post last week (How I Stay Organized and Implement GTD) and had a number of people mention how they thought I seemed to be a little too proactive about avoiding distractions.

For example, I make it a point to leave my phone in the other room, I have a separate partition with an Ubuntu installation that only has what I need to do my work on it (to avoid games and other distractions on Windows), I have browser plug-ins that keep me from visiting certain sites during working hours, etc.

I'm wondering if any of you guys are really proactive about keeping distractions away as well.
 


don't be too hard on yourself.
make a reasonable list of things need to be done each day. They don't have to be too many.
as long as you are meeting them, other things are not distractions.

Distraction is only when the required things which have been defined exactly, have not been done at the end of the day.

And do give yourself room. slip, make mistakes and come back better.
 
the best would be to schedule your day in a manner, that you start with the most important, but probably the most boring and "dry" tasks at first, so that when your distractions hit, you will be done with the most important work of your day. afterwards, you can be more "free" with the rest of your important tasks, to allow yourself some distractions, integrating them during the rest of your busy day:)
 
work and distractions have never gone well together. but this is a great idea anyway, thank you very much.
 
I don't really think it's possible to completely deal with distractions, as if you, for example, put me in empty room, I still won't be 100% productive and will look at the wall at some point if there's nothing else to do. I think their are normal and part of the workflow so we just need to accept it since it's in human nature.
 
If I have a very routine task, I do it until I get distracted. Then I switch to another activity: a quick chess match, learning languages, or turning on a video in the background while I do household chores. Usually these 10-minute breaks really help me focus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom