5 ways to stop getting distracted
This is part 2... You can read part 1 here.
My wife and I just finished Deep Work by Cal Newport and we're starting to integrate the 4 rules into our lives/schedules. Below is what's working best for us so far.
⚡️ 5 ways to stop getting so dang distracted
- Schedule the day in 30 min blocks
- This is all about seeing what you have left of the day and prioritizing
- This is NOT about sticking rigidly to the schedule... I probably change it 3 or 4 times a day and keep going
- Schedule two or three 90 min blocks of Deep Work
- Phone's in another other room
- Do not disturb mode on the computer
- WiFi off
- Email/social media/iPhone time is only allowed during scheduled breaks 🙌
- I can still be active online, I'm just a lot less distracted while I'm trying to get work done
- Shutdown sequence
- At the end of the day (around 5 or 6pm), we do the following:
- Take one last look at our email and calendar to make sure there's nothing important creeping up
- Go through the list of things we accomplished that day
- Write down our most important tasks for the next day
- Shut our computers
- Say "System Shutdown" in a weird artificial intelligence voice 😜
- And that's it... no more sneaking in one more email, tweet, etc... now we just eat dinner, read, watch a movie, go on a walk... it's remarkably satisfying
- No phone in bed
- The phone stays on the dresser at night
- This prevents those hour+ mindless Instagram binges that leave you feeling like a damn zombie
I highly suggest trying some of these. If you've started reading Deep Work, you'll know there's much more to it than I can bullet point in an email, but I think this is a great place to start.
Go make something move!