Business

These 4 Daily Distractions are making You Less Effective

4 things that make you less effective
Written by Sean Collins

You’ve been wondering what the hell is wrong because no matter how hard you’re trying it seems like you just can’t get everything done. And the day has only so many hours.

Now the main problem with this is a serious limitation of your main potentials, especially if you’re aiming high. Time management is something you need to incorporate in your life.

But it’s easily said than done, right? Job, wife, kids, in-laws, parents, friends, lawn, gym, bar…you name it and it’s time consuming. How the hell would ever reach your peaks in these circumstances? You can’t change it. You can’t run away for it. You’re doomed.

Not entirely.

What you need to do — under the presumption that you want to achieve more or even to entirely change your life’s routine — is to remove “artificial” distractions that are all around you, installed by you personally.

At the end, you will “buy” time for personal development, critical for the drastic change you’re about to implement. Because, make no mistakes, if you don’t prepare yourself in terms of learning and discipline, you will fail.

This is how to free up some time in your overloaded day.

1. Remove blamers, complainers and justifiers from your life entirely with a single swipe

In a following week focus on time you spend listening to all kinds of complains and lame attempts of justifications of personal lows and laziness. These people are eating your soul like nothing else in your life and draining your time like dessert does the water. They are worse menace than mutated flu virus. Because even a flu virus leaves eventually; these folks stick like a goddamn cement on a brick.

OK. Week after, shift your focus towards people you spend most of your time with. Identify those above mentioned. Now be careful because you need to separate acute (ad hoc) bitching from chronic, innate one.

Each and every of us, no matter how tough we are has his moments when everybody else seems to work against us and then we spend the day complaining.

In its essence, it serves as a relief valve because don’t forget that our current life style is forced. Don’t restrain yourself of throwing something in a wall and break it into small pieces. Japanese made a business out of it.

Now you may reach a certain obstacle during this swipe. As we are all aware, our wives do spend a good portion of their days complaining and bitching about something. Don’t think that her nagging all the freakin’ time doesn’t affect you negatively.

You have to make a choice. For some of us, this choice was ultimate. We did cut them off after third or fourth attempt to talk some goddamn sense into their heads trying to paint the fucking picture of how important it is to leave you the fuck alone so you can focus and make money or to prepare to make some.

It’s up to you in this segment. Try to talk with her and explain how life will be 5 years from now when you’ll finally have everything running for you. To do that, you need immense amount of “silent time” each day. She has to understand that. The only reason why she doesn’t understand it now is because you didn’t make an effort to explain it to her. Ignorance is not always a bliss.

That “silence” leads us to three second major time consumers. Again it’s nobody’s fault but ours.

 

2. Don’t keep your email client open and running 24/7

Allocate 3 different times in day to review and possibly answer emails. Even if your entire business communication depends on it, an hour per day is more than enough to deal with it.

20 minutes in the morning; 20 minutes in the afternoon, and 20 in the evening. Probably even less time and less frequent, just don’t open it up every half an hour.

Now the trick is to prioritize. We all have 80% of junk, 10% of so-so in terms of importance and only 10% of vital messages that we actually have to read and reply to.

Filter them and by all means remove the sign-ups for some stupid websites if you don’t get the desired level of information from them. Many websites start with great content. After a while the quality drops. Recognize that moment and remove yourself from their list.

Don’t spend a moment on mediocre shit. Remember: what you focus on expands.

And our focus can be seriously shifted towards the pile of bullshit of the new age.  

 

3. Limit your time on social networks

It’s seems fairly easy, doesn’t it? And it is if you think about the quality time you spend networking. For the most part you’re reading annoying blames, complains and justifications or watching stupid looking selfies.

All of the sudden everybody thinks that their self-image is a God given gift to the rest of the population. For fuck’s sake if you want to watch some hot and gorgeous women, turn on some porn like all men do. Jerk off if nothing else and you’ll feel better while saving time since you’ll lose your interest in those annoying selfies.

But OK, you love to watch them. They amuse you. So how the hell will you limit the time? Simple analysis.

Next time you login to Facebook or G+, pay close attention to two distinct things:

  1. What exactly is draining the most of your time and keeps you occupied. Keep the records.
  2. The amount of time you spend SCROLLING up and down the screen searching for what exactly?

This is just the beginning. You need to analyze before you plan and execute.

Ultimately, use the stop-watch every time you sign-in for 2 weeks. It seems childish but you will be amazed how effective this simple method is. You will impose a certain level of control and if you force yourself into doing this regularly, you’ll develop a habit out of it.

Trust us when we say this: learning how to control your limited time on this planet is one of the 3 most important factors of your success and happy life.

If you keep records about total time you’re consuming on viewing dumbass statuses and nagging and bitching, you’ll realize that you will be better off simply staring in the empty wall, let alone to go out and breathe some fresh air.

Don’t get us wrong, social networking is a great thing that provides with numerous opportunities but keeping it moderate and not over exaggerating is critical; same as it is with everything.

Same is with Internet in general. But, Internet is your best chance to learn. The only thing is: how to stay focus on what truly matters to you.

 

4. Use the Internet in your best interest or you’ll lose hours each day for the rest of your life because you’ll develop an addiction

The Internet can be time consuming if you just buzz around without the plan. It is almost unavoidable to lose your focus over some trivial thing. That being said, many will suggest that you should simply cut it off from your life or seriously reduce your time online.

That’s stupid and wrong on many levels.

What you need to do is to force yourself to stay focused on things that have the potential to develop your character. Will you deviate? Of course. All it takes is a photo of some great looking woman and that’s it. Should you bust your balls about it? Hell no! Enjoy it. Looking at something attractive relaxes your brain.

Internet is a great way to collect data and new knowledge. Simply focus on that. Change your perspective towards Googling in that direction and as time goes by, you will spend less and less time on trivia and more time on something valuable. It is an automatic process.

But by all means, don’t miss a good piece of ass. That will lift your spirit. Analyzing some hot chick is not a total waste of time. The following is and many are unaware of it.

IMPORTANT LESSON: the moment you feel anxiety or change in mood — you know…when you become restless and in doubt should you surf some more or go out — GO OUT! When you feel you’re overwhelmed and you have to force yourself to stay online because there is nothing else to do, so you click and click and scroll up and down, reading the weather forecast – think again.

Move outside or try to get laid.

Whatever you do, don’t try to learn or do something serious. First you need to relax your senses because — whether you’re aware of it or not — you’re pissed. So when you feel agitated with it, drop it and do something that will lift your spirit without having to force yourself into it.

Now some claims that you need to reduce your time in front of TV or to stop digesting news. We think it’s bullshit. Honestly, how much time do you really spend watching History Channel or ESPN?

News — global and local — are essential for development in sphere of situational awareness. TV relaxes and even provides with quality information.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you’ll spend 6 hours of your day reading newspapers or watching TV. If it’s a case, emails are the least of your time management problems.

What you need to do to be more capable of controlling these 3 (or 5) prime time eaters of the new age is this:

 

Incorporate basic discipline to develop in more segments rapidly

We’ve repeated this analogy few times before and trust us when we say that we will not deviate from this practice because in reality there is no better or even other way.

Soldiers don’t become brutally effective by birth. The strict schedule implements set of good habits into every each of them. Arguably no other organization has better time management than the army and every minute of the day is used to develop the man or woman.

Learn from them if you are trying to break through the cocoon of your current Matrix. You won’t get far without discipline and you know that all too well.

The best start is this: get up in the same time every morning of every day, Sundays included. Force yourself into it. After a while, the wakeup alarm will become obsolete. You will reprogram your brain and wake up in 6.00 AM sharp; regardless of the time you went to bed.

 

How’s that possible and what are you ultimately achieving with this practice?

You are strengthening the power of will. And when you successfully develop in one segment it spreads to all others. It is scientifically proven two decades ago with the series of studies and trials where groups of people, different in age, social status and gender, had to force themselves to train, manage money, write what they eat and similar for 2 months.

Trial after trial only proved that the will is like a muscle. Force it and it will grow. But unlike the muscles where you have to attack each and every with a set of separate exercises, to strengthen the will you need to pick only one segment of your life and it will boost all the others.

Would be great to be able to do that with muscles wouldn’t it?

Joke aside. The fastest way for you to empower your will and change your mindset is to pick 3 things you are uncomfortable of doing and to force yourself into doing them every single day.

It will take only a month and you will see the difference. You will change. You will be improved. You will put yourself on a growth trajectory path.

You see how simple it truly is? Why not give it a shot? It’s only for a month.  

 

About the author

Sean Collins

An investigative journalist with the thing for business, confidence, societal, and human behavior topics. The straightforward guy with the opinion that doesn't always agree with the mainstream. We call him Choozo. Cuz he's picky. About freakin' everything.