Distraction is your real competition

A lot is going on around us nowadays. Our schedules are overwhelmed with tasks for our careers and personal lives. With a fast pace, sometimes we feel stressed having many notifications on our mobiles, between messages, emails, social media updates, and phone calls, apart from being interrupted physically by others. Being distracted is affecting our productivity and efficiency. If we are not feeling progress in our daily tasks, and we are doing it with anxiety, eventually, we will lose our motivation to continue doing it.

It is important to clear our minds and focus, but how to do this? I was running this question in my mind for a long time and asked some of the subject matter experts and some wise people. Here are some of the tips I concluded.

1. Have a plan before starting anything of importance (at the beginning of the year, month, week, day, and hour).
2. Set a time limit for your tasks. The shorter the duration, the better. Keep the tasks simple and achievable.
3. Work in a noise-free environment; use headphones if you are in an open space.
4. Keep a distraction to-do list. Whenever someone interrupts you with an enquiry, write down the action needed, continue whatever you’re doing, or decide to close the task and reschedule to complete it.
5. Put your mobile on ‘silent’ while focusing.
6. Avoid opening many tabs in your internet browser; keep it to a minimum.
7. Schedule daily ‘Me Time’. Create a positive daily practice for yourself.

If everyone focuses on their lives, we will achieve what we see as impossible. Act now.