With a slew of funny videos, chain mail and less-than-educated blog posts in (or on?) this rabbit hole of an internet, there's plenty of daily distraction attacks on your brain cells. As much as I'm glad for all these smart devices, as I'm sure many of us may appreciate when Siri reminds us it's our Aunt's birthday, (because you know if you forget, you'll never hear the end of it when she comes to spend Christmas; not to mention your gift from her will be nothing short of that sweater she put in a bag for goodwill and decided it should be kept in the family), there are some things on Instagram that make me question the future of the human race. Pen and paper has strictly become my go-to medium of task-management ever since.
As a writer, I need to make sure I oftentimes stay on task - if I'm not distracted by playing Tetris or Dr. Mario (which is highly educational, I must say! I attribute my prime organizational skills to Tetris and with Dr. Mario all I can say is at least I grew up popping smarties rather than pills.)
What I find helps, is after about an hour - or ten minutes - or so, I like to take (two-hour) break. I find that by doing something creative like playing a video game, gives me something to focus on, so when I go back do routine work (which doesn't include the writing part; I love writing about an incoherent mess of things) my attention span becomes an increment more tolerable.
I may on occasion listen to music - electronic dance music that is (yes, party music gets me to somehow relax, actually that's not surprising for me). But what I find helps the most is taking a stroll around the neighborhood with my little dog Chloe, listening to dance music while playing Tetris (true story, highly dangerous!) But it works, I come back refreshed and ready to work for anotherten minutes hour.
So, on your break do something you love! You can get more acutely-focused and relaxed and interested in actually getting things done when returning to what was before utter banality (to use a nice term.) Just don't get to workaholic level or highly-distracted (join me!). Work in increments. I think the prime interval is 60-90 minutes, then a 15-30 minute break for most people (doesn't work for me for some reason).
Another thing I find helps is doing something related (directly/indirectly - doesn't matter) to any of your tasks. If you have to write a report for work by the end of the week, you could do research on writing sales reports - or you can look for a new job. This is the productivity pinnacle of absolute success.
Okay, one thing that actually might be worth checking out is this, (it actually managed to go into and not through my brain) Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (I hope that's right). Focusing on the now actually help to stay focused, 100%! Video games, my dog and washing dishes (and playing my guitar, and drumming on my couch) are the only things that have distracted me since!
Power of Now is about being in the "now", not yesterday, not even 8 minutes from now. By being in the now, you are easily more alert, which is honestly the most gung ho feeling. If you're thinking, "how can I be in the now? I have waaay to much to do today!", you're honestly not alone. I have five pages of reminders on my computer that make me feel bad when I have to keep swiping them off my screen because it's five o' clock and I haven't done the first thing on my list. Maybe because I added nine more things to it, in the space of an hour.
Don't overthink it your workload either. It helps to rate your tasks in order of importance, but sometimes doing the easy tasks first or ones that you know you can do without being rudely interrupted, is a good place to start; and make sure to stay hydrated, especially if you're prone to headaches.
That doesn't mean with six cups of coffee either. It's a diuretic after all, so you're parching yourself one cup at a time. You know the drill: 1-2 cups if you need your morning liquid pillar of strength. Then water! For the rest of the day! Not diet coke or listerine (Just me? I haven't done that since I was little, okay - which could explain everything actually); and the final step is to play a game on your cell phone (do people even still call them that?) Puzzle games like Candy Crush (or Bejeweled for those of you that know the classics), Tetris, Scabble or Pill Mania (yeah that's a real game) are a lot of fun. Zombie games work extremely well for me, for all that work I never actually do.
If reading isn't much your thing (which in case thank you for being here!), there are tons of YouTube videos on time management, schedules, reminders, timers, blah. Ignore them. Except ones buy, uh trying to remember his name - look for "College Info Geek" on YouTube. The guy a little better than mine. And even by watching a few minutes of this Eckhart Tolle video, you'll find a few take aways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KopmSpe33Eg
Remember, "Focus happens when you don't even realize you're working" (yes I did just make that up). Hope the rest of you guys' day is more constructive than the last five minutes!
As a writer, I need to make sure I oftentimes stay on task - if I'm not distracted by playing Tetris or Dr. Mario (which is highly educational, I must say! I attribute my prime organizational skills to Tetris and with Dr. Mario all I can say is at least I grew up popping smarties rather than pills.)
What I find helps, is after about an hour - or ten minutes - or so, I like to take (two-hour) break. I find that by doing something creative like playing a video game, gives me something to focus on, so when I go back do routine work (which doesn't include the writing part; I love writing about an incoherent mess of things) my attention span becomes an increment more tolerable.
I may on occasion listen to music - electronic dance music that is (yes, party music gets me to somehow relax, actually that's not surprising for me). But what I find helps the most is taking a stroll around the neighborhood with my little dog Chloe, listening to dance music while playing Tetris (true story, highly dangerous!) But it works, I come back refreshed and ready to work for another
So, on your break do something you love! You can get more acutely-focused and relaxed and interested in actually getting things done when returning to what was before utter banality (to use a nice term.) Just don't get to workaholic level or highly-distracted (
Another thing I find helps is doing something related (directly/indirectly - doesn't matter) to any of your tasks. If you have to write a report for work by the end of the week, you could do research on writing sales reports - or you can look for a new job. This is the productivity pinnacle of absolute success.
Okay, one thing that actually might be worth checking out is this, (it actually managed to go into and not through my brain) Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (I hope that's right). Focusing on the now actually help to stay focused, 100%! Video games, my dog and washing dishes (and playing my guitar, and drumming on my couch) are the only things that have distracted me since!
Power of Now is about being in the "now", not yesterday, not even 8 minutes from now. By being in the now, you are easily more alert, which is honestly the most gung ho feeling. If you're thinking, "how can I be in the now? I have waaay to much to do today!", you're honestly not alone. I have five pages of reminders on my computer that make me feel bad when I have to keep swiping them off my screen because it's five o' clock and I haven't done the first thing on my list. Maybe because I added nine more things to it, in the space of an hour.
Don't overthink it your workload either. It helps to rate your tasks in order of importance, but sometimes doing the easy tasks first or ones that you know you can do without being rudely interrupted, is a good place to start; and make sure to stay hydrated, especially if you're prone to headaches.
That doesn't mean with six cups of coffee either. It's a diuretic after all, so you're parching yourself one cup at a time. You know the drill: 1-2 cups if you need your morning liquid pillar of strength. Then water! For the rest of the day! Not diet coke or listerine (Just me? I haven't done that since I was little, okay - which could explain everything actually); and the final step is to play a game on your cell phone (do people even still call them that?) Puzzle games like Candy Crush (or Bejeweled for those of you that know the classics), Tetris, Scabble or Pill Mania (yeah that's a real game) are a lot of fun. Zombie games work extremely well for me, for all that work I never actually do.
If reading isn't much your thing (which in case thank you for being here!), there are tons of YouTube videos on time management, schedules, reminders, timers, blah. Ignore them. Except ones buy, uh trying to remember his name - look for "College Info Geek" on YouTube. The guy a little better than mine. And even by watching a few minutes of this Eckhart Tolle video, you'll find a few take aways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KopmSpe33Eg
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