Distractions: What a pain in the behind.
You know how it goes…
Just when you manage to wrap your head around something, there they are — distractions. There are three types of distractions:
Distractions you can avoid: These are the distractions that are not only easily predictable, but also are easily moved from your schedule. The fix is either eliminating yourself as a part of the distraction (such as telling the person interfering that you can’t be a part of whatever it is they’re doing OR avoiding the place where the distraction is happening), or eliminating the distraction itself (such as closing the FB tabs on your browser).
Distractions you can tame: These are distractions you can’t really avoid (like your kids coming back from school while you are working at home) BUT you can adjust yourself and your schedule and make the distraction a part of your day without allowing it to take up work-time.
Distractions you need to accept: These are the hardest of all. The distractions that you try to fight without realizing you actually need to learn from them something about you and your time management. It can be a desperate attempt to side-hustle in the evening, without realizing that this time is not good for creative work or an attempt to battle yourself into waking up at 5am just to waste 3 hours on YouTube. Sometimes, distractions — especially self-inflicted ones — are a message from ourselves to ourselves and it is better to tune in.
How to avoid distractions
First, you need to know which distractions you are dealing with:
Keep a notepad and a pen near your working station and every time you catch yourself distracted – make a note, answering the following 3 questions:
When did it start?
Who initiated it?
What was I doing when it started?
Keep this log for a week, and by the end of the week analyze your log.
Mark your distractions as “avoidable”, “tameable” and “acceptable”.
Create a fix for each one of them.
Giveaway!
I’ve decided to give away 3 FREE revisions of your distractions, meaning you will keep the log and I will analyze it for you + give you a full plan on how to battle it. The price I usually charge for this service is $297, and you’ll be getting it completely for FREE! The rules of the giveaway are that you need to write in the comments below what topic of question would you like me to cover in one for the next episodes — that’s it! I will be picking 3 winners by Monday, August 18th
Til next time — keep calm and hack time!
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Episode Transcription:
Welcome to episode number 27 of The Time Hackers Podcast and today’s topic is how to deal with distractions.
Before we dive right in, I just want to remind you that if you haven’t visited Imjulie.com yet after its renovation, you really should.
So, let’s dive right in!
Today, we’ll talk about three types of distractions and how can you tackle them.
So, here are the three types:
Type #1: The distractions that you can prevent Type #2: The distractions you can tame Type #3: The distractions that you need to accept
Distractions are a thorn in the foot of your effectiveness, but not only because of the time they steal from you, but rather because of the focus shift that they cause. It will take you longer and it will be harder to get back to the same state of focus that you were in before you got interrupted. Since you can’t plan every single thing in your life, especially if you are surrounded by those nasty humans, there are three types of distractions and we are here today to find a cute for every single one of them.
So first, let’s understand which types of distractions you have in your life and how can you tackle them.
Type #1 is the ones that you can prevent. These are predictable distractions — the distractions that there is a pattern to them. For example, if there is a colleague that takes a coffee break every day at 10 am and always makes his round, looking for someone to accompany him on his break. The way to prevent this is to simply not be in your working station. You can take a walk with your sand or water task. And if you have absolutely no idea what sand or water task are, simply head over to imjulie.com/episode26 and listen to this awesome episode.
Another tactic that you can use to prevent this distraction is put a little sign that on one side says that “You can talk to me,” and on the other says “Highly concentrated. Please avoid contact and simply switch it to the latter one whenever the dude comes. It can take a few days, but in less that 3 days, the 10 am dude will get the message.
Type #2 are the ones that you can tame. These are the distractions that will happen no matter what, and are absolutely 100% non-dependent on you. If you’re working at home, it might be your kids coming back from school at the exact same hour every day, creating a noisy environment and a crave for some family time. You won’t be able to prevent it even if you close yourself behind a thick door in your office. But, you can tame it.
Taming means you adapt your schedule a tiny bit and shift the distraction from a place of catching you off-guard to coming at a perfect timing. For instance, in our kids coming back from school example, make sure that you have your lunch break when the kids come back from school. In that way, you don’t spend more time on your breaks. But, do get some family time and there is no more distraction in your calendar.
The third and final type are the ones that you need to accept — the distractions that you absolutely need to learn from. Sometimes repetitive distractions are a sign from our body that we’re not listening enough. It can be an inability to focus on certain hours, which leads to procrastination and spending way so much time on social media. Or it can be just an itch to do something.
One of my one-on-one students was having a major issue. He was getting distracted by different things — basically by anything that lay around him — exactly 20 or 30 minutes after he would start a task. So instead of fighting these urges, we try to split all his tasks into small chunks of 25 minutes.
Now, instead of having to interrupt himself in the middle, he gets rewarded with a break for a successful completion of a task. He’s more effective, more peaceful and whole lot more satisfied with his accomplishments.
So, how do you do it?
The way to define your distractions is to have a log for them. So for one week, whenever you catch yourself being distracted, write down the answers to these following 3 questions:
Question #1: When did it start? Question #2: Who initiated it? Question #3: What was I doing when I got interrupted?
This way, you will be able to analyze your distractions and find a way to avoid them, tame them, and accept them by the end of the week.
So, you must be wondering, “What if I get it wrong?” “What if I didn’t identify a distraction correctly?”
It’s no biggie. You’ll notice that the distraction either doesn’t go away or shifts its form. For example, if you close yourself in an office around the time your kids come back from school, and now instead of just being distracted by the kids, you’re distracted by yourself, thinking of what you’re missing out on.
If you catch yourself having a distraction still, downgrade it. If you treat it like a distraction you can prevent, try to tame it first and see what happens. If it was a distraction that you try to tame, try to perhaps tame it in a lighter way or even try to figure out what it says about you and your habits. It might be that it’s just something that you need to accept about yourself and work around it.
So, to summarize everything: There are three types of distractions — the ones you prevent, the ones you tame and the ones you accept. The way to figure them out is to find the mutual features of a distraction (time of day, person, trigger, etc.). Once you identify it, you will know by its features if it’s something you can prevent, tame or need to accept.
What I want you to do next is to take a little notepad and pen and keep it at your working station. Make sure to keep a log of your distractions for a week starting Monday. By the end of next week, make sure you sit down and analyze your results.
And just to make things a little bit more interesting, I am offering 3 personal reviews to your distractions log done by me. Meaning, 3 listeners will get a complete review of their analysis plus my insights on their distractions log. All you need to do to enter this giveaway is to head over to Imjulie.com/episode27, and write me a comment saying what question would you like me to answer here on the show on one of the following episodes. Out of all the participants, I will randomly choose 3 that will get my analysis completely free.
The winners will be announced on Monday, 11th of August. So, what are you waiting for? Head over to Imjulie.com/episode27 and leave me a comment.
That’s it for today, guys and gals. If you like this episode, I will be forever grateful if you could spare a few seconds to rate and review this podcast. It helps us get better rankings and spread the word of time hacking a lot faster.
So this is it! Until next time, keep calm and hack time!
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