By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
(In the past article, we knew about the benefits of advance planning. Today, we will know how to save ourselves from petty distractions.)
Avoid petty distractions
NOIDA: As the day progresses, petty distractions are quite natural to come to you. You can’t have any escape from such distractions. These are part of life. You must have seen that once you start doing some work requiring concentration, mobile starts ringing. You just finish answering the call to find that a message from your friend has arrived. You reply the message and start working; suddenly an email notification pops up on your desktop. By the time, you check and reply the email, you get another incoming call. You never get continuous undivided attention span for the work, which results into devoting more time on any particular work, than actually required. You feel stress as you have to finish lots of works and you are not in a position to get stuck up with one task only.
Does this sound familiar to you? I believe, it is the story of most of us.
So, what is the solution?
By now, we just expected or wished that there should be minimum distractions. We expected our environment to change. Now, we will not wait for environment to change, which is not going to change anyway. Once you are aware that distractions are bound to come and it is ‘YOUR’ responsibility to create your own way to deal with the distractions, you have to do two things:-
- Prioritise according to your peak/ low performance hours – First, identify the time periods, when your mental skills are at their maximum levels. This may be different for different persons and everybody has to identify his peak performance hours, however, my experience says that it is first half of the working hours for most of the persons. While prioritising your activities during the day, always keep in mind, which activity will require mental strengths and which activities can be performed in any state of mind. High mental requirement works should be scheduled for the morning sessions and normal activities like replying the simple letters or emails, sending reminders etc. should be left to afternoon sessions.
- Create small chunks of time with undivided attention – We have to create small chunks of time, during which, we can keep distractions to the minimal. Over a period of time, it is seen that if you want to concentrate on any difficult project, at least one hour’s undivided attention at a time is required to make any progress on that project. This small chunk of time may be called ‘power hour’.
To keep the distractions to minimum during this power hour, let the other people know that you are habitual of not getting disturbed while at work. Initially, it may seem difficult, as you may think that other people may get annoyed. But believe me, they honour good work culture. After all, they are your friends, not your enemies. You just have to communicate them that you want peace. If you are boss, there is no difficulty as you have the option to switch on the red light outside your room. But if you are an employee, you can choose to be distracted only by your boss, not by anybody else.
Decide that you will not attend the mobile calls during this one hour – Put your mobile phone on vibration mode, so that the bell does not ring but you don’t miss the important calls. You have to decide that unless very important, you will not pick up the phone. Turning off the incoming email notification is totally in your hands. You can always check the email during your tea break. Before start of power hour, make sure that you do not get distracted during this hour by nature’s call. Ask your secretary not to divert the unnecessary incoming calls to you and tell the caller that you are in a meeting.
Remember, every minute wasted in the office puts extra pressure on your family life as either you have to work till late hours in the office or have to take the work home; either physically or mentally or both. However, inculcating the habit of creating small chunks of time with undivided attention will help you a lot in long run. People will come to know that you like to work without distractions and the colleagues will not come to you for just gossiping.
Every minute wasted in the office puts extra pressure on your family life as either you have to work till late hours in the office or have to take the work home, either physically, or mentally or both.
– Sanjay Kumar Agarwal
(In the next article, I will share how I used to bifurcate my working hours during my office days. I believe that you are enjoying the journey towards the future of your dreams with me. If yes, please stay tuned. Happy G.O.P.T.A.)
Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Creator & copyright holder of the concept G.O.P.T.A.© is an Author, Certified NLP Lifestyle Trainer, Strategic Interventionist, Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker ( http://bit.ly/Signature-Workshops-Sanjay-Kumar-Agarwal ) and recipient of Honorary Doctorate of Excellence (Management) by prestigious Young Scientist University, California, USA. He is Founder of ‘Read, Learn & Earn Movement’ and is popularly known among his fans & followers across the globe as ‘Time and Goal Guru’.
