Deal with and deflect distractions – remove as many distractors as you can control
If distractions are driving you crazy and keeping you from doing your work, let me offer this suggestion. Eliminate as many distractors as you can. Now this may seem like a “no joke” type of advice, but after hearing from friends, family, colleagues, and other professionals around the world, I know it’s worth mentioning, and should be the first “best practice” you choose to implement, long before looking for the ‘magic answer’.
First, make a list of all the things that distract you. Your list could include particular sounds, movements, people, thoughts, or just about anything else. Keep in mind that each person is unique in terms of what distracts them.
Next, review the list of distractors you wrote on your list, and add more as you think about them. Be as clear as possible about exactly what is distracting you, and then start making decisions that eliminate or at least minimize these distractions.
For example,
- If a ringing phone distracts you, turn off the ringer, whether it’s your office, home, or cell phone.
- If hearing your incoming email chime distracts you (duh), turn the sound off.
- If hearing other people’s voices distracts you, close a door, put on headphones, ask people to take their conversations elsewhere, get a white noise machine, or find another place to work part of the time.
- If having piles of junk, I mean valuable stuff, all over your office is distracting (and it is), then pick out at least one pile and sort it, throw it away, or put it in a shredder.
- If your brain keeps running through all sorts of tasks and commitments that you keep worrying you’ll forget, then grab your planner, a notebook, or some other physical place and unload your brain so it’s captured somewhere instead of just spinning around. in your head. All you have to do is google the words “David Allen and the Psychic RAM” and see what you’ll find if you need more support to empty your head.
What else do you need to DO SOMETHING about? There is more in your control than you may have recognized.