I have written about this in the past but this needs to be reiterated.
Distraction is a disease. It is an addiction.
Given how information is easily available these days and the ever increasing number of platforms which compete for our attention, it's becoming extremely difficult to stay away from distraction.
Staying focused will be the most important skill for the future. All other skills will be secondary and contextual.
I have been having conversations with so many people during the last many months who have told me two things: days are busy and things are just not getting done.
This also summarised few of my days and weeks. I decided to figure out why this is happening. I realised social media is taking a lot of my time and more importantly I'm not clearly identifying metrics to say what can be considered as 'done'done.
Let me give you an example:
Instead of putting creating retention strategy in my to-do list, I break it down in to steps and tasks within and then measure how I have done against those.
What gets measured, gets tracked. What gets tracked, gets done.
But I always start with the larger picture in mind and then break it down into chunks.
I tried that for a few weeks and it's working again. I see my to-do list with more checks. Now I plan to employ this in some of the things I want to get done in my personal life.
This is what I do to ensure I get more done and stay more focused. See if this helps you:
Identify what distracts me
Assign a time slot for feeding my distractions rather than completely avoid it. Will progressively minimize it.
List down what I want to achieve today, this week and this year.
Commit daily with blocks of time during the day to doing above list of activities.
Don't end my day without completing the tasks (toughest step)
Remember when you do this: if you're unable to complete tasks on a sustained basis then either you're being too ambitious or too distracted.
Figure out and solve.
If you have any other plans or practices you're following, please feel free to share it with me.
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