How to Reduce Distractions By Planning Your Day - Women's Business Resource Community

I’m sure you hear it all the time – reduce distractions and you’ll be better at ‘blank” You know that distractions are cutting into your productivity. They are costing you time and are keeping you from doing everything you need and want to get done. Reducing distractions gives you options:

The freedom to consciously choose what you want to do with your time,
Allows you to get more done in less time. And have enough hours left over at the end of the day for the fun stuff,
Enables you to tackle those big work projects that will help you move up or reach that next level.

Prioritizing and Planning

One of the best ways to reduce distractions in whatever form they appear is to plan your day. When you know exactly what you should be doing and what you are working on next, it’s much harder to allow yourself to get distracted. You don’t have to spend precious time trying to figure out what’s next. You take a look at your planner and get to work.

Planning your day, your work week, and your next big project also keeps you from trying to multi-task. Instead of working on everything at once and letting Task A distract you from Task B; create a solid plan for the day lets you focus on one thing at a time, seeing it through to its completion.

Coming up with a plan for your day and writing it out will also keep you from getting distracted by random thoughts about everything else you need to get done. Once it makes it into your daily planner, you no longer have to worry about it. Things will be remembered and taken care of at the appropriate time. It doesn’t matter if it’s your spouse’s birthday, and important client call, or your child’s dentist appointment.

Routines

Last but not least, planning your day and getting into a routine makes it easier for those around you to avoid distracting you. Especially at times when you are trying to focus. For example: part of your daily plan is to get to the office at 7 am and take care of your most important tasks before everyone else shows up at 9 am. You don’t have to worry about people distracting you. Once your family and co-workers become aware of the schedule, they will know not to call you, or stop by during those hours.

Try it for yourself. Come up with a rough daily schedule. Adjust it as needed until you find something that works and see for yourself just how many distractions you can eliminate this way.

Lessons Learned From “Don’t Text And Drive”

In the past years, there’s been a big push to stop people from texting and driving. Rightfully so. We’ve all seen the statistics on accidents caused by drivers who were busy reading or replying to text messages while behind the wheel. We’ve seen the fatalities and the bad crashes. Even looking down on your phone to see what the latest beeping or blinking alert was about can be distracting enough to cause a crash.

You know without a shadow of a doubt that using your smartphone while you’re driving is distracting. Yet, you allow it to distract you whilst at work. Like during important meetings, while spending quality time with your family, or watching a movie or TV show. We’re all doing it. We’re attached to our phones and feel the constant need to check them. Alerts are beeping, buzzing, and flashing at us from the phone, making it almost impossible to ignore. And aside from driving, we think nothing of it.

Embrace the “It Can Wait” Mantra

The lesson we all – myself included – take away from “Don’t Text and Drive” is that using our smartphones during the day at work or play is just as distracting and disruptive. It may not be life-threatening the same way it is when we’re driving a car. But it removes our attention from what we should be doing just as much.

Let’s take a meeting for example, or a lecture at a conference or even college. It’s not unusual these days to see people constantly looking at and clicking away on their phones while still claiming to be paying attention. If you can’t drive with the focus you need while sending a text or email, what makes you think you can truly pay attention during a meeting and do it? The answer is that you can’t. You’ll be missing things that are said. You’ll be missing the body language and silent interactions of your team members or professor. You won’t get the same out of the meeting or lecture that you would if you put your phone down.

It’s no different when you keep checking your phone while you’re working or playing with the kids. The phone distracts you and takes your focus away from what you’re doing. Yes, there are times when it comes in handy, and yes, there are a lot of good reasons to have these smartphones. The problem is that the lines are getting blurry about when it is appropriate and productive to get out your phone and when you’d do better leaving it in your pocket or your purse. Be more aware of when using your phone is helpful and when it is a distraction that should be eliminated.

How To Stay Focused Longer

Being able to focus single-mindedly on a task is a great skill to have. It allows you to concentrate only on what you’re doing. As a result, you can do better work in a shorter amount of time, no matter what it is you’re working on. But working highly focused is hard. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy.

Don’t be surprised to find that you can only stay highly-focused for fifteen or thirty minutes at a time in the beginning. The mind works a bit like a muscle. You have to train and work yourself up to long sessions of laser focus. So, practice is part of the equation. Start small and then challenge yourself to stay focused for longer and longer periods of time. Use a timer to push yourself a little harder each day.

Productive is Not the Same as Busy

The second part of the equation is to work in a distraction-free environment. There is nothing that kills focus faster than being disrupted. The more distractions you can cut out of your focused work time, the easier it will be to get things done.

Here’s how you can start to train yourself to stay focused for longer and longer periods of time. Start blocking off small chunks of time in your schedule for highly productive work. During that time, take your phone off the hook, close your door, and get rid of any distractions you can think of. Set a timer and get to work, not allowing yourself to break for any reason. Work as concentrated as you can until your timer goes off. Rinse and repeat several times throughout the day.

As time goes by, you can start to extend the time you spend working highly focused. You may start out with 30 minutes or less, but you can easily work up to one or two hours, take a short break to stretch your legs, followed by another hour or two of focused work.

You’ll be amazed how much you can get done each day in a few hours of being able to focus. Your productivity will soar and you’ll have the rest of the day to deal with anything else that comes up that doesn’t need your full and undivided attention. Best of all, there should be plenty of hours left in the day for all the fun stuff. After a morning spent making serious progress on an important project, you won’t feel bad about grabbing an extended lunch with a good friend or cutting out of the office early on a Friday.

How Distractions Can Hurt Your Productivity

Being productive is important. It’s how we get things done, how we improve what we’re doing, and how we move up in the world. It’s particularly important at work. When you can prove that you’re a productive, contributing member of the team, your job becomes more secure. This will support you moving up in the company. If you’re working for yourself, increased productivity means your business does well. And your profits from said business will hopefully increase. Being more productive also means you have to spend less time on each task. This gives you the freedom to decide what to do with the rest of your day.

The key to being more productive is to focus. When you can concentrate on what you’re doing, you’ll get done more quickly. The enemy of productivity, on the other hand, is distractions. You’ve noticed this yourself. If your phone won’t stop ringing, people stop by your office, or you keep having to deal with emails, it’s hard to get anything done. You constantly have to stop to deal with the distractions. When you get back to work, you have to spend valuable time and effort figuring out what you were doing.

Stay in the Flow

Distractions also hurt your productivity because they get you out of the “flow”. The flow is a special state of hyper-productivity you can get into when you work focused on something without getting distracted. You seem to think faster, type faster, and get through the job much faster than usual. It isn’t easy to get into this flow, but you know when you’re in it. You’re focused single-mindedly on what you’re doing to the point where you’re not even aware of the time until you stop working. You don’t get hungry or thirsty. You sit at your desk and you get things done more quickly and more easily than during your regular work day. These are some of your most productive days.

Sadly, distractions can pull you right out of “the flow” if you can’t ignore them. The random phone call or a person walking into your office will do it. Once you’re out of the flow, it is very hard and sometimes impossible to get back into it. You can see how just one little distraction can have a huge negative impact on your productivity for the day when this happens. It doesn’t even have to be this extreme. A handful of distractions during a regular workday will start to add up and keep you from getting through your to-do list. Eliminating distractions as much as possible, particularly during your most productive hours at work is one of the best things you can do to increase your productivity.

How A Boost In Self Confidence Can Help You Get More Done

You may not have thought about it this way, but a boost in confidence in yourself and what you are doing can help you be more productive. Let me explain how this works and how increased self-confidence can help you get more done.

When you’re suffering from low self-esteem or have doubts about the task or project you are working on, it can lead to distracting thoughts. I’m sure you’ve noticed this in the past. You begin to:

Second guess yourself while you’re working
Need to get a second opinion from a colleague or superior to make sure you’re on the right track, or
Decide that what you’re doing isn’t good enough and start over.

All of this can be distractive. It keeps you from focusing on your work and getting through the project in a productive manner. In other words, the lack of confidence will cost you time. But let’s take a look at what happens when you are confident in yourself and your abilities.

Self-Doubt is the #1 Killer of Confidence

Instead of wasting time doubting yourself and having those negative thoughts disrupt your train of thoughts every fifteen minutes, you are able to focus. You will increase your productivity simply because you are able to

Cut down on internal distractions,
Don’t have to continually stop and start over after one of those random, self-doubting thoughts, and
Stop wasting precious time figuring out what you were going to do, or second-guessing that it’s the right move.

And of course, you aren’t being distracted by the need to have someone else review and give you feedback. That takes a lot of time in itself. It takes even more time to process and implement the changes they invariably suggest. By improving your self-confidence, you can start to eliminate a lot of those distractions. This allows you to focus solely on what you’re working on.

Self-confidence also makes it easier to get into the flow – the high-productivity state of mind where the work almost seems to do itself. Boosting your confidence and eliminating distractions are two of the best steps to take when you are trying to get into the flow.

To give yourself a self-esteem boost on days when you’re feeling low, take a look at how much you’ve accomplished. Look back on successes from the past or how much you’ve already gotten done this week or this month. Another good strategy is to fake it until you make it. Pretend you’re confident in what you’re doing and keep plugging away until or unless you have a valid reason to doubt that what you’re doing is right and ask for feedback.

Recap: How to Reduce Distractions By Planning Your Day

One of the best ways to reduce distractions in whatever form they appear is to plan your day. When you know exactly what you should be doing and what you are working on next, it’s much harder to allow yourself to get distracted.. Here’s check-list for you to refer to when planning your day with the intention to reduce distractions:

Create a Distraction-Free Environment: Design a workspace that minimizes external interruptions and fosters productivity.
Prioritize and Set Clear Goals: Define your priorities and align your tasks with your long-term objectives for a focused approach.
Practice Mindfulness and Mental Clarity: Cultivate mindfulness techniques to stay present and enhance concentration.
Time Blocking and Schedule Optimization: Implement time management strategies to allocate specific periods for focused work.
Manage Digital Distractions: Tame the digital overload by setting boundaries, utilizing productivity tools, and managing notifications.
Break Tasks into Manageable Chunks: Divide complex projects into smaller, achievable tasks to maintain momentum.
Develop Self-Discipline and Accountability: Build habits and routines that promote self-discipline and hold yourself accountable.

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