Reduce distractions from your life ~ Time management tip 25

Let’s imagine that you had 1 button for every distraction in your life.  How many buttons would you have?

A few, hundreds… Let’s have a look at how to reduce distractions from your life.

We can find distractions in all areas of our life, the key is to become aware of them and do what you can to eliminate them.

As I type this blog post.  I have my settings on Distraction Free, so I have nothing but the post I am writing showing.  Once I’m done I’ll be able to sort out the tags, category… but for now they would be distractions.

Reduce distractions during work time

I’ve already talked about Work when it’s work time.  So let’s look at how to remove distractions from your work time.

Here are a few tips.  Some of them may not be an option for you depending on your work, but they may give you more ideas.

• Switch your phone(s) off.  You may not be able to do this all of the time, but I do encourage it some of the time.  When I’m working with clients (usually on Skype), my landline phone is switched off and my mobile is on silent.  Very few people who would call me during work time would call my mobile.  My family would if it was an emergency and the school would.  So I have it on and switched to silent/vibrate. I also do this when I’m working on a project.
• Close down tabs.  When you’re doing work on the computer limit the number of tabs you have open.  They can be a huge distraction.  When I am doing social media work, I open all of my relevant tabs and then work through them one by one. Once I’m done with twitter, I close that tab and move onto another site. When I blog, I only have the tabs open that I will need to link to during the blog.
• Use headphones. If you work with other people and you don’t want to be disturbed, put headphones in.  It might seem rude, but it will block out tempting conversations for you and will give a message that you don’t want disturbing.
• Have set email time and social media times.  Again I’ve already talked about these in earlier posts so check out Reduce email time and Reduce social media time.

Reduce distractions during family time

Here are just a few things you can think about.

• Sitting around the table for meals with no handheld devices allowed such as phones, tablets… No TV.  Just time to talk, eat and reconnect with your family.  This could be a hard one to implement at first if you’re not already doing it.
• No phones, no email checking when you’re helping with homework, playing a game… BE PRESENT.
• Follow the when you’re working work rule and then leave it alone during family time.

What’s bugging you?

This may seem a strange question to ask in this post, but what I want you to do is make a list of what’s bugging you.  Start of by walking around your home.  Any unfinished jobs, anything that’s in the way, collecting clutter… add it to your list.  Now, make a commitment to eliminate these things.  Beside each one write TODAY, THIS WEEK or the month you intend to eliminate it. Also, write down who will do it.  Can you do it or do you need someone else to do it?  If it’s someone else who?

Example.

Fix Tap ~ Today (phone plumber) *The plumber may not come and do the work today but your action can easily be for today.

Alter curtains ~ Be realistic.  Are you going to do them?  If yes, when?  If not who can do them? Get it sorted as quickly as possible.

Clearing what’s bugging you using a simple plan like this that you work through in small chunks will give you a huge sense of time and space freedom.

This can also be things like, a friend has a habit of calling in when you are working.  Time to explain to this friend your work hours.

Declutter

I’m only going to briefly talk about decluttering today.  I’ve got a full post on this coming up.  For now, notice where your Clutter hot spots are and pick one to work on this week. Give yourself small time chunks to work on it.  Let’s say it’s your office.  Commit clearing one drawer, one shelf at a time.  If you have a particular hot spot in your home where STUFF accumulates, commit to putting away 3 things a day.  This is just an example to get you started.

[tweetthis]Start clearing distractions from your life[/tweetthis]

Let’s carry this post on.  I’d love you to share what distractions you have in your life and maybe I’ll be able to give you more tips in the comments below.

This blog post is part of a series.  To read the rest of my time-management tips, go to Time-Management

OVER TO YOU

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