Are you constantly bombarded by distractions? You wake up relatively
early determined to have a productive day. You just showered had some healthy
breakfast and then sat down to be productive, bills cannot pay themselves
after all, after you fire up your laptop a torrent of email notifications rade
down your notifications bar, the time is 7:30 a.m. according to your plan and
your day's timetable, you'd like to get started on some work your boss sent your
way by 8:00 a.m. you have set for yourself a deadline of 5:00 p.m. so it's
7:30 a.m. and your emails look inviting medium has sent you their top picks for
the day each of which has caught your interest, you open five new tabs it won't
take more than 30 minutes you tell yourself by 8:00 a.m.
you'll be on track three and a half hours later after reading the review of
this superb sci-fi series that recently premiered on Netflix, you remember that
your goal for the day was not to somehow go from medium through Twitter to
BuzzFeed and then to the New York Times reading reviews at that moment you're
likely to be feeling guilty for not resisting the distractions that have led
you to wasting three hours of time you could have been productive. Distractions
are something that most of us deal with every day in our lives, can you identify
the distractions that you are bombarded with daily? do you know the sources of
the distractions that you encounter? are distractions good or bad? are they both
good and bad? how do you deal with distractions that impede your
productivity? what about distractions at work? well in
today's video we'll be talking about distractions and more distractions. How
can you take back your life from the rut that has been created by distractions
around you. Understanding distractions. When asked to identify some distractions
that we encounter every day most of us are likely to give the same answers. On
Monday Derek was distracted from the road while driving, because his attention
was caught by the new billboard that got put up at the side of the road on his
route to work, the billboard featured a beautiful model little surprised there
that Derek's attention was unfocused Philip on the other hand doesn't get
distracted by billboard models much his is a different affliction, he keeps
finding himself lost in his thoughts when he should be concentrating on his
work actually usually starts pretty easily. At
their open space office he could become unfocused and have his eyes shift
through the room, after which he'll notice and acknowledge that lucy has a
new hairstyle, his boss is particularly loud today, and that grace seems to have
had a late night. How do these distractions differ?
what about mind-wandering, is it any different from being distracted. There
are two ways you can get distracted, the first is similar to the beginning of
the example above when your attention is caught by an email notification when you
should be getting set up and ready for the work you're supposed to be doing in
this case you have an attention grabber like the email notifications or the
beautiful model on the roadside billboard Derek's commute to work.
Therefore, the attention of your mind instantly shifts to the new arrival in
mind town, in this case the distraction. The other way you can get distracted is
by simply becoming unfocused in this case like with Philip you do have
something you should be focusing on in this case the work he's supposed to be
doing but you can't quite focus. Because of the inability to focus on your work
distraction is invited in, which is why Philips mind will acknowledge and notice
some mundane things around the office. Mind wandering on the other hand occurs
when you're not supposed to be really concentrating on anything and you let
your mind loose thinking about nothing in particular and training your focus
nowhere, it's almost like mindfulness but that's a video for another day. Mind
wandering is the good kind of distraction, since while you may be
working on autopilot with an end in mind for example when cleaning dishes you're
not really expected to be focusing on any one thing. Mind-wandering is good for
slowing down the brain and spurring our creativity, but it's incredibly important
to decide whether your mind's wandering or whether you're actually distracted. So
let's talk about the main source of distractions. Noise distractions, you're
in the middle of a sweet slumber you may be having a good dream you aren't sure
but all you know is that you're feeling good and want that to last for a long
time and then a shrill sound disturbed you just as it was getting better. I
don't know if it's okay to call your morning alarm a distraction, but the
point is that's what a noise distraction is like. There sounds in your
surroundings that are coming to your ears without your own volition.
In the office it could be the sound of fingers moving on keyboards, printers
spewing out paper and colleagues arguing about some player from last night's
football game. In a train it could be the hum from the movement of the locomotive
on its tracks, voices here and there conversing in low to moderate volumes
and the sound of fighter jets flying low outside on their training exercises.
There are noise distractions that you can control and there are those that you
can't. If you're looking to have less noise distraction because you're trying
to be more productive at a particular point in time, then you can block out the
noise that you can control. For example, you can switch off the TV if it's
distracting you in the house, you can listen to music on earphones to block
out the background noise in the train and the possible sounds of the flying
jets. If it is in the office and noise distraction is a sure way for you to get
your eyes away from the computer and your mind to the people who are arguing
about football, buy earplugs or invest in a good instrumental playlist that you
can listen to instead. Personally, I like Chopin and Bach. Our phones. As cliche as
this might sound, the advent of our smart phones is probably done as much good as
it has done harm. Smartphones are the blackhole of distractions, due to the
sheer number of places you can get lost in there. Do you have reliable internet?
good for you! chances are that you'll find yourself in the middle of social
media pages belonging to one celebrity or another or on one belonging to a
childhood friend with whom you did some dramatic stuff together way back when.
You could also be in your search engine reading web pages of conspiracy theories,
latest movie reviews or pirating the latest copy of your favorite authors
book, not that I'd ever do that and let's not get started on cat videos. This is
just the tip of the distraction iceberg that can be found inside your phone
online and offline games quick messaging applications and planners and budgeting
applications can be found on your phone. As such, it's become impulsive for most
of us to reach for our phones every few minutes, to check if we have messages or
likes or if our loud neighbour indeed went for his fancy vacation. He did.
Checking our phones regularly in completing small tasks like liking
Susan's post or a source of dopamine, which is why we have an impulse to pick
up our phones automatically after a short time of not using it. To reduce the
frequency with which you're distracted by your phone, first
quiet your notifications by switching them all off or using your do not
disturb mode. This ensures that you're not distracted by the
sound of the notification getting into your phone and this makes it less likely
for you to pick it up. Out of sight out of mind. Uninstalling
applications you rarely or never use is another way to reduce the frequency with
which your phone distracts you, for example if you rarely use a social media
application on your phone, remove it. As it becomes one less application you
might be tempted to use as a distraction. On the other hand, if you have an
application you use regularly, a little too regularly by your calculation you
may choose to use an app Locker to limit its use to a few hours every day.
Cognitive distractions. Cognitive distractions, are those that are born of
our own minds for example you may be focused on writing a monthly report on
your desk on a Thursday morning, when you remember that the next day is your
birthday and that you'll be holding a party. So you get excited and start
planning your party in your mind instead of doing the monthly report that's due
in an hour or so. Consciously getting your mind back on track is the way to deal
with cognitive distractions, this means that if you find yourself thinking about
your birthday, consciously pull yourself back by bringing the computer screen
into focus and leading your mind towards the numbers that are displayed thereon.
Hunger. One underrated source of distraction for most people is hunger,
your brain needs twice as much energy in order to function as other cells in the
body. When you don't eat, your brain slows down and your focus shifts away from the
work you're doing and this makes you easily susceptible to distractions
around you. Sometimes the type of food we consume also works against us. For
example, sugary foods may give you a rush soon after you eat them, but when the
energy crashes we're left unable to do anything more. In this regard, first
ensure that you don't try to power through an assignment for hours on end
without taking a break in the middle to get something to eat. You're likely to
waste all those hours, secondly ensure that you eat foods that are a healthy
combination of proteins and carbs, to give your body energy that will be
sustained over a period of time not one that will lead to a lengthy crash
afterward. Clutter. A messy desk isn't necessarily a source of distraction for
some folks, but it may be a bother for others enough that it distracts them.
Your brain is programmed in such a way that it responds to your surroundings,
therefore, surroundings that are not in order make clutter your brain as well. To
reduce the likelihood of your brain being distracted by the clutter in your
surroundings, you can either become a minimalist
your workspace or you can organize it. The things placed on your desk should be
there only because they're needed and they're arranged in a manner that is
easy to access and use. In a nutshell, here are the rules to dealing with
distractions around you either in your work place or your work desk at home.
One, if you're in control of the distraction cut it off completely. Case
in point, if your email notifications of distracting you in the office
turn them off. Secondly, if you cannot control the distraction, get into the
habit of consciously pulling your mind back from the distraction. If it's
possible, completely block out the distraction. Case in point,
when your colleagues are arguing about a football player and you have no interest
in joining them, use a pair of earplugs to block them out. Alternatively, you can
tune them out and consciously bring your focus back to the task at hand. Thank you
guys so much for watching, please share the video with a friend or two and leave
your thoughts below, with that said I will see you all in the next one. Have
you ever wanted to make passive income, but you felt like you didn't have the
money it took to get started. Well, in this video I'll share with you seven
passive income ideas that take little money to get started.