WGL-Bonus: Shawn Chhabra- Avoid Distractions and Stay Focus on Goals and Priorities
“Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal.”
-Mario Andretti
Are you unable to concentrate on the tasks you should be doing? Are you focusing too much attention on gossip, chit chat, web surfing, and other insignificant activities? If yes, then you are letting distractions run your day.
Distraction - a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.
Focus – to pay particular attention to
The number one enemy of focus is distraction. In this chapter, we will discuss how distractions affect your success and how we can avoid it. We will also talk about the different kinds of distractions and how to deal with them.
Yes we’re all guilty of giving into distractions, whether we realize it or not. We all have so many other things that can steal our attention away, and therefore these can become time suckers. We’re all guilty of giving into distractions, but we need to work through them!
Be Proactive and Stay Ahead of Things
A few weeks after my high school graduation, I started to pack my things for college. I wanted to start as early as possible so as not to interrupt my long awaited month long travel vacation. I started to separate my clothes from my underwear, my socks from my hankies, and my shoes from my slip ons. I put them neatly inside my luggage in an orderly manner. I also put post its on my boxes to label them. I started with books, pillows & blankets. I was really making great progress!
After packing, I felt really accomplished that I had finished packing ahead of time, and as if I was totally ready to go to college when I got back from my vacation. This simple attitude towards your own personal things will also reflect how you work. Sounds simplistic, but think about this for a moment!
If your room is messy, there is an 80% chance that you are cramming to finish a deadline, constantly tardy, and most likely be in distress in all aspects of your life (work, family, relationship). The point here is that when one area of your life is unorganized or distracted, this tends to be an issue across other areas as well.
So if you can recognize that your patterns and habits can help to contribute to unproductive ways, then you can be more aware of it. When you notice the typical distractions then you can do your best to avoid them. Sure it may force you to see things that you don’t always want to see, but this is how you work towards productivity in the end.