I'm sure you have heard that little voice in your head, you know the one that tells you that you should have done something when you haven't, the one that NEVER shuts up. Oh and it's never positive, it's ALWAYS a negative commentary.
Well it's the same one that talks to you when you are writing, posting, liking and commenting. Constantly evaluating what you're writing, questioning whether you should have done it differently, said more or said less and even if you should have said anything at all.
Should you tap the like or the love emoji on Facebook and tapping the angry one when someone is complaining or the sad one when they're sharing some personal heartache. Is tapping the emoji enough or do you add some comments too. But what if you say the wrong thing. You’ve only got 10 seconds to add something. Look at all those other comments, should you even bother or should you just like one of the other comments you agree with, but oh some of those other comments are dreadful, should you say something back or should you just move on. But you may be enraged with it all and your inner dragon can't resist it.
All of those voices are happening instantly and in split-second succession and you don't even know it's happening to you. And it's very likely that you were being distracted by the next post, the next notification on your mobile and your need to write and post the next article or blogpost.
We are convinced that the distractions are outside of us and in fact they are all in our heads. We are the ones who allow ourselves to be distracted, it's never anyone else’s fault, really it isn't.
So how do you manage to stay focussed and on topic with all the thousands of opportunities for distraction?
BETTER HABITS
You are never going to drown out all those distractions but you can train yourself to develop better habits.
Better habits means getting organised around when, where and how you engage with all of the thousands of distractions that you have to face and all the tasks you have to perform. It means being organised and you decide when you allow yourself to be distracted.
Examples:
- Notification to say someone's tagged you? You schedule a reminder when you know you have time to look at notifications.
- You need to write an article or blogpost? Again schedule a reminder and block time in your schedule when you will have time to write it.
- Ideally you'd like to have a steady flow of posts going out to your social channels. Use a social media scheduler like Buffer or Hootsuite and there are other schedulers too.
- You need a source of interesting and exciting content to learn from and to repost to demonstrate your thought leadership. Investigate using RSS aggregators, like Feedly, Flipboard and others.
I have found by using the Apple reminders app and scheduling the reminder for specific days and times I am able to be far more productive and disciplined in developing better habits. It's an ongoing journey and with practice you can and will develop a better habit in reducing the amount of unnecessary distractions.
I can highly recommend The Habit Guide by Leo Babauta, who has some excellent tips and strategies to develop better habits. He also writes a great blog zenhabits.net.
What strategies have you developed for reducing the amount of distractions?
I'd love to learn and I am sure others would to, so help us out and share your answer below.
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LinkedIn created a brilliant eBook with my favourite illustrator. @gapingvoid (Hugh Macleod) creates the most amazing messages through his illustrations. Read more about him and @gapingvoid here: (http://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/team-members/hugh-macleod/)
Regularly I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, interpretation, insight and my meaning.
@stayingaliveuk 🚀
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