I have a secret. I love video games.
One of my favorite games a few years back was a game called Batman Arkham City. It was a childhood dream of mine to BE Batman and fly through Gotham City, fighting crime, helping the police, and chasing the Riddler – and this game allowed me to do exactly that.
In Batman Arkham City, the goal was to go through the city and achieve specific ‘quests’. When you were on your quest, a phone would randomly start ringing and low and behold, it was the Riddler, asking you to solve his riddle. Despite the fact that you were already in the middle of a task, you would be forced to decide whether to pause your quest and solve his riddle or continue on your quest. This was one of my favorite parts of the game, despite how annoyed I was when I was really on a roll with my quest and that phone would start ringing.
It was one of my favorite parts of the game, why would it annoy me? Because it was a distraction. Of course, I wanted to solve the Riddler’s riddle, who wouldn’t?
While solving the riddles was certainly fun, they were nothing but a distraction from meeting my overall goal. These riddles caused you to stop what you were doing, change your mental path and send you halfway across town to solve something completely unrelated to the quest at hand. You were no longer committed to simply completing your quest.
The same thing can happen in both your personal and professional life. Distractions pull us away from our overall goals and delay progress on big-ticket items that truly want to accomplish.
I’m sharing with you my three main tips for minimizing distractions.
1. Turn off all desktop/ web/ email notifications.
Often times when you log in to these sites they ask you if you want to receive notifications from these apps/ sites. The answer is ALWAYS no.
What happens is an unimportant notification pops up and pulls you out of your deep thought process causing you to lose your train of thought and put your mind someplace else. Someplace it really doesn’t need to be at that moment. That is the key – ‘at that moment’. Look at the notifications on your time, when you have free time and want to allow your mind to freely wander – not when the website tells you to.
2. Turn off notifications on your phone.
Yes, I said it. You do not need to know what the score of the game is or what the weather is predicted to be right this second. I recently downloaded a weather app and one morning it told me that it would be rainy. In Seattle. Rainy. In. Seattle. Did I really need that notification? Could I have looked it up if I actually needed to know? Do all of those things on your time and do not allow those casual sneaky things to get into your process.
3. Lastly, don’t answer your phone.
While I understand that this may come off somewhat rude, hear me out. Before we had this incredible tool we know to be caller-ID, we were forced to stop what we were doing and answer the phone. We have been pulled away from our process and have a conversation when it was convenient for the other person.
Schedule your phone calls. One thing I hate is when someone simply said: “call me tomorrow”. How am I supposed to prioritize that? Schedule the call and you can be better prepared for a productive conversation at a time that is convenient for everyone.
RR#6,
Dave
Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Please see the Disclaimer page for full details.
