How can you avoid getting distracted frequently when working?

If you are having trouble focusing and getting distracted, then here is a bit of an antidote which might help to put things into perspective. 

This is the script from the scene when Tyler and the protagonist are outside of a grocery store about to shoot the store clerk from the movie Fight Club. Basically life is too short, decide what you want, go out and do it, regret weighs heavy and you are going to die.

Voice-over: On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everybody drops to zero.

Narrator: Stop! What are we doing? Come on! God!

Tyler Durden: Hands behind your back. Give me your wallet.

 [The clerk, now kneeling, hands him his wallet.]

Tyler Durden: Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 South East spanning apartment A. Small cramped basement apartment, Raymond?

Raymond K. Hessel: How did you know?

Tyler Durden: 'Cause they give shitty basement apartments letters instead of numbers. Raymond, you are going to die.

[Raymond begins to cry. Tyler examines content of the wallet.]

Tyler Durden: Is that your mom and dad? Mom and Dad are going to have to call up kindly Doctor So-and-so. Pick up your dental records. Wanna know why? Because there's gonna be nothing left of your face.

Narrator: Oh come on, come on.

Tyler Durden: An expired community college student ID. What did you study, Raymond?

Raymond K. Hessel: S-stuff.

Tyler Durden: Stuff? Were the mid-terms hard? I asked you what you studied!

Raymond K. Hessel: Biology mostly.

Tyler Durden: Why?

Raymond K. Hessel: I don't know.

Tyler Durden: What did you wanna be, Raymond K. Hessel? The question, Raymond! Was "What did you want to be"?!

Narrator: Answer him, Raymond! Jesus!

Raymond K. Hessel: Veterinarian, veterinarian.

Tyler Durden: Animals.

Raymond K. Hessel: Yeah animals and stuff.

Tyler Durden: And stuff, yeah I got that. That means you have to get more schooling.

Raymond K. Hessel: Too much school.

Tyler Durden: Would you rather be dead? Would you rather die? Here, on your knees in the back of a convenience store?

Raymond K. Hessel: No, please no!

[Tyler takes his gun down, takes out Raymond's driver's license throwing the wallet in front of Raymond.]

Tyler Durden: I'm keeping your license. I'm gonna check in on you. I know where you live. If you're not on your way to becoming a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead. Now run on home.

[Raymond gets up and runs into the night.]

Tyler Durden: Run Forrest, run!

Narrator: I feel ill.

Tyler Durden: Imagine how he feels.

Narrator: Come on, this isn't funny! That wasn't funny. What the fuck was the point of that?!

Tyler Durden: Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.

Voice-over: You had to give it to him. He had a plan. And it started to make sense in a Tyler sort of way. No fear, no distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.”

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How to overcome procrastination.

 I was recently asked the question "I spend the whole time worrying and avoiding finishing my tasks and then at the last minute I rush to finish it, been most of my life doing that, how can I cure that?"

Most people have experienced this kind of issue at some points in their lives. There are a number of underlying causes and there are also habitual causes.

With regards the to the underlying causes, there can be issues around self confidence, (anxiety about the work not being good enough or having such an unrealisitically high expectation of the completed task, that you feel too overwhelmed to start - also known as perfectionism).

First understand that there are very few tasks for most people that need to be completed at 100% perfection. There are some scenarios where this is necessary, but for most people this just doesn’t apply. Work to an acceptable level of completion. Often perfectionism comes from a deep rooted fear of criticism, so subconsiously, rather than accept the criticism, procrastinators will put things off and then when there is any kind of negative feedback, they can justify it as not having enough time to complete the task properly. This of course is a self delusion which prevents you from every delivering a consistently decent level of work and will ultimately rob you of any future opportunities, because you have been unable to deliver work to a good standard, because you keep putting off starting in the first place.

Understand, that to deliver at a high standard does not require 100% perfection. The standard of most people’s work is so low in my experience, even if you deliver 75% standard work, in most cases this is ok, and if it isn’t, then you will still have plenty of time to improve it. Beyond the 80% level, you will often get diminishing returns on the quality of your work, so in most cases it is not worth completing the work beyond this level.

When I started working for myself, one of the most helpful and productive things that I learned, was to have a very low standard of success. This seems very counterintuitive to most advice out there, however, it meant that I could at least get some success on most days. Even the days that felt like there was very little progress made, I knew that if I was a litter further on, then I was still on my way. Subconsiously, this keeps you moving forward one step at a time. This can only be really applied if you don’t have any external deadlines.

If you do have external deadlines, then you will need to prioritise your work. (you can see one of my other responses in another article on how to do this).

The second aspect to the issues are habitual and this will involve you having to change some behaviours. One of the most powerful techniques to get you moving is something called the Pomodoro Technique. All that is required, is for you to commit to starting a task for no more than 10 minutes. Set a timer, and then just keep working on the task for 10 minutes without distraction or interuption until the timer ends. Once you are going, you will find it easier to keep going and then you will find that you will make more progress on your tasks.

Ultimately you need to realise that worrying accomplished nothing apart from taking your self confidence and control away from your situation. You need to first of all personally take responsibility for your actions and inactions. Then you need to be clear about what it is that you need to accomplish. Following that, prioritise your tasks, then begin, and don’t worry about it being perfect or not. As your self discipline improves with these suggestions, you will find that you will be able to complete things more quickly, and the standard of work will gradually improve, but you have to start somewhere where you can actually win, otherwise you will just continue to feel terrible about things.

One other little tip is to have a place where you can work without distraction. That means no phones, emails, notifications or social media.

In the end our lives are made up of time. Time wasted on things that are not moving your life forward or making any contribution to your life is wasted life. Life is too short as it is, so don’t spend another moment worrying, and just do what you can, where you are with what you have.

I have two recommendations of books which should be really helpful below. You can order them by clicking on the image. 

Good Luck.

Haroon

The Most Inspiring Speech: The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout Will Chan...

This is an amazing speech!

Tony Robbins 5 Steps to Take Control of Your Life Part 2

Part 2 of this amazing series...

Tony Robbins 5 Steps to Take Control of Your Life Now Part 1

The master of motivation to help you get control of your life and get organised for success

How to Organise Yourself For Daily Success

To thrive in both your personal and professional life you need to organise and prioritise your workload so that you'll be able to achieve your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tasks and goals.

Organising your time to create the right balance between work and play will not only help you to get things done, but it will also lower your stress levels and keep you in good mental and physical health.

The truth of the matter is that if you are not managing your time properly, you are literally stealing time from your clients, colleagues, family, friends and of course most importantly, yourself.

How does that make you feel?

As you will begin to discover through the following chapters, the best way to use your time productively is to focus on the few critical and profitable tasks and goals rather than the mass of trivial ones.

The way you allocate your time will absolutely depend on what the actual tasks are and when they need to be done. Either way, the first thing you need to do is to be clear about your goals and your objectives.

Knowing what you want to achieve annually, monthly, weekly and on a daily basis will allow you to figure out what needs to be done.Once you know your destination, it's then a simple matter of creating a plan to help you get there.

Here is an example of a weekly timeline in MS Outlook.

If you spend most of your time in front of a computer then Outlook is a great tool to use to get organised.

Initially you will need to list all of your weekly activities and the tasks that need to be completed for the week. You are the best judge of just how much you can realistically achieve. Next you need to prioritise your work and delegate (if possible), or drop, any lower-value tasks to which you are not personally adding any real value.

There will always be those daily items that crop up and need immediate attention. These tasks are the ones that yell out, "URGENT!"

These 'urgent' things are often unavoidable, but that doesn't mean that you need to lose track of the day's key objectives.

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How to Create A Housekeeping Checklist

Like most other activities, housekeeping becomes easier when you have a ready list of things-to-do. With a house cleaning list handy, you can make sure no cleaning activity gets left undone, and your home remains a pleasure to live in! You also become ultimately much more efficient. Read on to see how to create a house cleaning list.

Step #1 - List Down Every Single Cleaning Activity In Your House

Creating a house cleaning list is fairly simple -- all you have to do is to spend 5 minutes in each room of your house, jotting down on a piece of paper every single cleaning activity that's ever going to be done in that room.

The key to following a housekeeping checklist is routine and repetition, so after listing down all the cleaning activities in your home, SCHEDULE each and every activity.

Step #2 - Decide How Often Your Tasks Need To Be Done

Take a good look at the cleaning activities you've listed down. Beside each activity, mark how often you need to do each activity. Do you need to do them daily? Weekly? Monthly? Or will they be okay if you did them once every season? Decide!

"Daily" cleaning tasks may include making your beds, washing the dishes, wiping down your sinks and stoves, and clearing clutter from the living room. Cleaning the bathroom, on the other hand, may be a "weekly" task, and mucking out your closets may be a "seasonal" task.

Here's a tip -- don't get tempted to list everything as a "daily" task. Cleaning DOES have its fun side, but it's still possible to "overclean" a portion of your house. It's a waste of time and energy, and may even be bad. For instance, if you wash your curtains every month, you'll soon find that you're buying more new curtains per year!

Overall, a good house cleaning list will make sure that no corner of your house gets neglected over time, and ends up gathering dust, clutter, mildew, and other things that may breed disease and vermin.

Step #3 - Decide WHEN Your Tasks Need To Be Done

The third step is to schedule the days when your tasks need to be done. You may, for instance want to do certain things on Mondays when everyone's out of the house, such as changing and washing bed linen and cleaning the bathroom. You may also want to clean the back porch on Fridays before the folks come over for the weekend.

But here's another important tip -- don't forget to schedule frequent "off-days," where you don't do any cleaning besides the usual daily tasks. That way you'll have the time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the spotlessness of your home. You are, after all, entitled to enjoy the fruits of your cleaning efforts!

For an effective and enjoyable house cleaning list, make sure to make it reasonable. Make sure that you don't burn out just by doing your usual cleaning tasks! Just do the amount of cleaning you can reasonably handle, and cleaning starts to become fun.

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