How To Break Free From Distractions
It seems sometimes, that it is at that moment that we make up our mind to do something reasonable, tangible, productive, life-changing and impacting with our lives that something will comes up to distract and sap us of our energy, resources, intellect, and times with family and friends.
Meanwhile, it is the desire of every meaningful and focused person to achieve set goals at the earliest time possible in life. This is only possible when distractions are eliminated from your life.
We all have way too many distractions in our lives these days. But, imagine how much you can achieve with your life daily at work, business, ministry or family if you could break free and eliminate distractions from your life.
Distractions can be emotional or physical, and come in the form of conflicting feelings, negative thoughts, too many emails, too many commitments, feelings of self-doubt and low self-esteem, and anything else that gets in our way of having a clear, singular focus on what we truly desire and expectation from life.
One of the fundamental principles of productivity is that in order to get things done, you must focus. And that necessary focus requires that you eliminate as many distractions as possible.
To live life with less distraction so you can be more productive in the coming year, consider implementing one or more of these unconventional habits:
Accept and accentuate your personal rhythms. Discover the rhythms of your day to make the most of them. For example, I do my best creative work in the nights to very early hours of the mornings, afternoons work well for busy-work, and evenings are set aside for family — leaving late evenings for entertainment, rest, and guilt-free distraction.
Accepting and understanding our natural rhythms to the day/week provides healthy motivation to remove distractions during our most productive parts of the day knowing there is opportunity later to indulge them.
Establish a healthy morning routine. Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The first hour is the rudder of the day.” He was absolutely right. Begin your days on your terms apart from distraction.
If possible, wake first in your household, fix yourself a warm breakfast. Journal or read or just enjoy the silence. Plan how you want the day to go, and commit it to God.
[Tweet “Develop a distraction-free morning routine. It will lay the foundation for a less-distracted day.”]
Keep a to-do list. One of the most helpful and practical pieces of advice I ever received about keeping focus is the simple solution of keeping a to-do list handy and current. No matter how hard you try to manage yourself, new responsibilities and opportunities will surface in your mind from internal and external sources.
The opportunity to quickly write down the task allows it to be quickly discarded from your mind.
Be mindful of the internet and social media. We all have problem with this point. This may sound drastic, but really, the Internet is one of the biggest time-waster ever invented (and you dare not get addicted to it). Learn to turn off the internet when you do not need it for your present task.
Even if you are using Twitter or Facebook in the name of business, sitting on either of both, checking in all day long and responding to alerts is not helping your business. Remind yourself what you do, and why you do it…then go do it.
Avoid impulsive tasks and jobs. Sometimes, when we are at the peak of a task, we just remember that there is a task we wanted to do before now or someone comes up with another task for you and demands you attend to it immediately.
This can be a form of distraction to our focus. Therefore, you must avoid any impulsive (something you have not previously planned for that is not necessarily important at the moment) tasks and job distract you.
And finally, learn to ‘say no to people’ who distract you with their interests. You must not go out with them for a drink or cinema because they are your friends when you were meant to be busy with something else. Many of us compromise this point because we have imbibed the ‘people-pleasing’ mentality. It is your life and no one should let you misuse your time.
Having said all the former, the objective of breaking free from distractions is not just to control your day but instead to work on things that matter and you care about, spend time with people that you love, and live your life on purpose. What is most distracting for you? What are you going to do about it?
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