5 ways to deal with distractions

It’s a beautiful, sunny day and you’re planning to have the most productive day of your life. You’ve just made fresh coffee and switched on your laptop with deep hope to follow the daily plan that you’ve designed in your notebook. But when you start typing in your user password, THEY👽 already seem to be everywhere — ringing, beeping, and honking. Of course, we’re talking about notifications. They tend to drive us crazy, make our days miserable by causing a headache to even the most well-organised people.

Obviously, they don’t come unexpected. Since our whole work life is inside our computers, they literally become our entire workplace. Water cooler chats are being replaced with Slack messages or virtual coffee invites, and simple questions turn into a series of endless e-mails with numerous people cc’ed without reason. There are also those urgent, “life threatening” matters which result in colleagues reaching out with the very same message through WhatsApp, text, phone call and Social Media channels at the same time.

Suddenly, your neighbour’s dog starts barking outside like there’s no tomorrow. Well, that’s very unfortunate because you’re supposed to start a video meeting in 15 minutes! Oh, and you’ve just reminded yourself that a colleague asked you a favour yesterday afternoon… But what was it about? You can’t remember the details. At this stage it seems like you’re starting to feel hopeless even though the day hasn’t even started yet! …No worries, all this is quite common and there are many ways to take care of it.

Healing digital omnipresence

Tackling online overwhelm is a step-by-step process. There are a few tips and tricks that will help us prioritise work and become more efficient. Below, you’ll find quick wins that can be introduced right away.

• Notifications

Prioritise important messages against social ones. Distinguishing tools for urgent situations and channels for chit-chats are a great idea that will help you tackle all the noise. If you’ve scheduled yourself time for deep work, make sure to switch off all notifications that are responsible for unnecessary distractions. Inform your colleagues that you won’t be available to check out those messages for a few hours and that they should contact you via phone instead. Once you’re done with all important work, you’ll check out what was happening in the background when you disappeared for a moment.

• Calendars

Block dedicated time towards deep work. There’s nothing more annoying than people scheduling meetings randomly as your calendar appears to be free, right? It’s about time to change this. Start reserving slots for activities other than virtual meetings. You may name them simply as “BUSY”, or you can share details if you want — it’s all up to you. Gone are the days when you’re frustrated by attending the seventh meeting within a single day. Inform others about your real availability — they can’t read your mind.

• E-mails

How many unread e-mails do you currently have in your inbox? Be honest! And how many have you opened just to glance over their content? Finally… how many of those have you “starred” promising yourself that you’ll get to them later? All these practices result in a messy inbox that will probably keep haunting you forever! Try to create folders instead where you’ll have everything in the right order according to context. If you categorise all messages this way, you’ll be able to focus on the most important ones and prioritise your daily activities better.

Putting yourself first

You’ve just learnt how to tame your laptop — the strongest time-consuming beast. Now it’s time to take care of yourself, your habits and interactions with others. This is the moment when your well-being and healthy boundaries jump in. Let’s check out how to make sure that you treat yourself with respect. Well, we must start with ourselves first before we change others!

• Breaks

Make sure to take several breaks a day to clear your mind. Of course, you may be running on a tight schedule but sitting long hours in front of your laptop without moving is pure nonsense. After some time, you simply won’t be able to focus due to extensive screen time. If your colleagues suggest another meeting during your pre-planned break, politely decline unless it’s urgent or take your phone with you and leave the house. You can walk in the park and chat — there’s nothing wrong with that! However, if there’s heavy rain, snow or hail outside you may want to exercise at home a bit. Close your laptop for a few minutes and jump, bend or just walk around. This will help clear your head before you start the next task.

• Saying “NO”

Let’s start with tributes for all people-pleasers who always like helping others no matter the urgency, time or context. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with supporting colleagues or offering advice but it may be dangerous if we forget about ourselves. So if you’re really in the middle of something important, don’t drop it just to solve someone else’s non-urgent problem. Also, if someone asks you to participate in an additional project but you’re already very busy, politely decline for now — ask if it can be done a bit later or suggest another person to help out. There’s nothing wrong with setting boundaries like this.

Practice makes a man perfect

Right now you may think that all these ideas seem interesting but it’s all easier said than done. Yes, it’s definitely not going to begin like magic so start small. Pick just one of these hints and introduce it right away — you’ll see how it’s becoming a habit with time. Don’t abandon your decision even if you suddenly have so much to do that dealing with distractions seems like the least priority. Remember that persistence is the key to success.

Make sure to check out the second episode of the iTech Media Work Your Way Podcast and listen to insights on how to eliminate distractions when you work remotely. Our guest is Ali Pruitt, a remote work productivity expert, who is talking about tips and tricks that will enhance the flexible working experience.