Mastering Productivity: How to Eliminate Distractions

I’d like to talk about the subject of distractions today. One of the ways you improve productivity is by minimizing distractions. And distractions fall into a variety of categories.

One type of distraction are habits that you may have. People develop different kinds of habits. Sometimes you get up and walk around, or you leave the office, or you go get a snack. And sometimes it’s just nervous energy. But one of the ways you stop, doing things that you don’t want to do is to become aware of them.

So one of my tips is to just start noticing all the habits that you have, that you may not be aware of. As you start noticing these habits, I think it will begin to change your behavior and you’ll begin to minimize those distractions.

Another distraction is letting people interrupt you during the day while you’re working. One of your goals is to concentrate deeply in the work. And it’s hard to do that if you’re constantly being interrupted.

There is a tendency to want to have an open door policy. You want people to know that you’re available all of the time. So if you’re not on the phone with the client and the phone rings, there is a temptation to pick up the phone and see who it is and see how you can help them. If someone walks into your office while you’re working on something and you’re not on the phone with a client, there’s a tendency to want to invite them in because you want people to know that you have an open door policy.

You don’t have to allow those distractions. You don’t have to have an open door policy. You can be known for someone who is available and helpful, but on your own schedule. So when the phone rings, if you’re working on something instead of picking up the phone, let it go through to voicemail. Even if it’s an important client, they’ll understand.

When you get emails from people and they tell you that they need to hear from you, you can acknowledge the fact that you will get back to them. But you don’t have to get back to them instantly unless it really is an emergency. But most of the time things aren’t such an emergency. You can let people know that you’ll get back to them. If someone comes into your office, you can let them know that you’re involved in something and that you’ll get back to them as soon as you’re finished.

You could even calendar something right then and there, get out your calendars. Put it down when you’re going to meet, but don’t allow other people to interrupt you all of the time, whenever they want to. It’s okay to honor your own work schedule and calendar things for later.

Another type of distraction is your inbox. If you’re letting your inbox get cluttered with emails, that’s going to be a distraction. Every time you look at your inbox, you have to reread emails. Even if these are emails that you’ve already decided to do later or emails that you may have even accomplished and you just didn’t delete them. But every time you look at your inbox, you see all of these emails and that takes up time.

It also creates stress because there is this feeling that maybe you’re missing something. So you have to review all of those emails. And again, that takes up time. And even if you don’t review them, even if you don’t consciously review them, you’re still seeing them unconsciously, your mind is seeing all of these emails and that creates stress.

And when you think about how many times you look at your inbox all day long, I’m looking at my inbox all of the time, and then you’re always seeing the same emails over and over again. So a better policy is to empty that inbox, keep it clean. I’ve been doing this for several months now, and it’s been wonderful.

Now I go to my inbox and I only see emails that have come in recently. And I’ve developed the habit of moving all of those emails to other folders. And certainly we can help you set up systems that would work for you. But once that inbox is clean, it eliminates all those distractions and eliminates all that stress.

I think you’ll feel that you’re much more organized. Much more on top of things. So the idea is to keep that inbox clean.

Another distraction that you may not even notice is the distraction of Time. Being constantly aware of things that you have to do in the near future. You may have appointments that you need to get to or things that you need to do. But if you’re working on something you should be able to immerse completely in the thing that you’re working on. The problem is, if you get deeply immersed in something, it is very easy to lose track of time.

There is a tendency to be late for things, or forget appointments, or forget to do things. And in order to avoid that, the tendency is to constantly check your clock and to check your calendar, make sure that you’re not forgetting anything. So that is a source of stress and it is a source of distraction. Because you can’t be thinking about two things at the same time.

You can’t be thinking about what you’re working on and thinking about what you need to be doing. You have to go back and forth. So it is a distraction and a very anxiety provoking distraction. There is such a simple way to solve this problem that it’s almost funny. If you simply set your alarm in your iPhone for the things that you need to do. You can either set your alarm before each appointment or each task.

Or you could set all of them for the day to look at your calendar and set all of your appointments and then you’ll know that you will never again miss an appointment. You’ll never be late for something. It’s such a remarkably easy technique and it will make your life so much better.

Remove so much stress. And you’ll never be late for things again. So I recommend this. I recommend experimenting with this. You could also set your alarm just five or 10 minutes before the appointment. Giving yourself enough time to finish up whatever you’re thinking of. Making sure that you’ve written down any notes you don’t want to forget putting it away. Maybe even calendaring time when you’re going to start working on it again. And then you want to have enough time to get ready for the next meeting to remember all the things that you need to do in preparation for that meeting and get your mind oriented to having that conversation.

So you might want to set your alarm. If you have a three o’clock appointment, instead of setting it at 3:00, you set it at 2:55 or even 2:50, depending upon what you’re working on and how much preparation you have to do. I think you’ll find that this is a remarkably wonderful technique for eliminating stress, remembering things you have to do and getting rid of the distractions.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you with your own productivity, please feel free to review our website.

We have many articles and booklets on the topic and tools that you can use. And of course, feel free to reach out to me personally or someone from our company, and we will be happy to spend some time with you at no charge on the phone or over Zoom discussing with you how you might be able to improve your own productivity.