101: Staying focused
Interruptions are out to get us all. The phone rings. A co-worker comes through to show off her new engagement ring. An instant message pops up. Your dad is texting you. You spend lots of time at work, but keep having to add to your to-do list, and never seem to be able to cross anything off. Here are three ways to keep the distractions at bay:
Instead of reacting, try planning. “Plan less and accomplish all of it,” says an article by Jan Bruce at Forbes. She calls planning the heaviest lifting your brain has to do — and a task that should be done early in the day. It's all about creating a manageable, small list, she said, such as five things that need to get done. “A plan for the next 40 minutes is more effective than a weekly to-do list,” she writes. Toss long to-do lists; they are too … well … distracting.
Train your mind like a muscle. No doubt about it, says David Rock, author and co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, in an article by Nadia Goodman at Entrepreneur.com, the Digital Age has made multitasking the norm, but it comes with a downside. "It reduces our intelligence, literally dropping our IQ," Rock says. "We make mistakes, miss subtle cues, fly off the handle when we shouldn't, or spell things wrong." We must reintroduce ourselves to focus on single tasks, he says, practicing concentration, even if it's for five minutes at a time.
Schedule your distractions … don't let them schedule you. Shawn Radcliffe at MensFitness.com suggests setting up “distraction time” as a reward for a good, solid chunk of work completed. For example, block off time to check Facebook or Twitter — to eliminate the constant checking and time wasting. “But stick to your schedule,” Radcliffe warns. “Remember, you control the distractions.”
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