How to Avoid Distractions and Practice Stress-Free Productivity
Every day, a person walks by a house, and every day there’s a dog howling on the front porch. Every day. Howling. A man sits next to the dog on the porch, calmly rocking in a chair. Finally one day, the passerby stops.
“Why does your dog howl every day?”
“Because he’s lying on a nail,” the man says.
“Why doesn’t the dog move?”
“Because it doesn’t hurt enough yet,” he replies.
As we kick off a new year, now’s a good time to take notice of the nails you’ve been lying on — and decide once and for all that you’re going get up and put an end to the needless suffering.
Think about all those annoying, nagging, or even painful little things you simply put up with on a regular basis that could prove distracting to you throughout a day. You don’t have to keep putting up with them, especially since they may be affecting your overall productivity. Make a list and start attacking them.
For example, here’s one possible nail: All those emails you don’t read that fill your inbox. Taking on this never-ending battle of unwanted emails is a good way to start decluttering your life, beginning with your inbox.
One of the best gifts I gave my wife this holiday season was to unsubscribe her from over 30 unwanted email sources. It only took me about five minutes, but don’t tell her that. She appreciated the gesture even more than the pajamas I got her for Christmas.
You might rationalize that it will take longer to unsubscribe than it will to just hit delete. But I don’t think that’s true. Each time you have to trash a message, it takes a moment of your attention and a second to hit delete. The time it takes to delete those emails, day after day, adds up to a lot more than five minutes of unsubscribing.
(This assumes you’re deleting the unwanted messages. Imagine leaving them in your inbox!? You don’t do that, do you? That would be like leaving junk mail strewn across your desk or kitchen counter.)
So just get up off the nail and unsubscribe, or notify the sender that you don’t want to receive the emails.
The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Clutter, chaos, and distractions kill productivity and joy. The more leaders I’ve worked with and studied, the more I’ve become convinced that the most impactful leaders rely on a system to block distractions so that they can focus on their most important work.
In his book and training on the Getting Things Done (GTD) framework, productivity guru David Allen advocates five steps to help get off the nail and stop the unproductive howling:
- Capture. Collect what has your attention. Most of us have multiple inboxes, calendars, task lists, and work spaces. We use multiple devices and have different people pulling us in different direction. We have to lay it all out and consolidate it to get a handle on it.
- Clarify. Process what it means. Decide its priority and what it’s asking of you. Then delete, delegate, decide, or do something with it. Don’t defer or demur. It’s got to be done or it will clutter your mind and space.
- Organize. Put it where it belongs. Give it a priority or deadline. Make it visible and easy to access on a defined action list. Or schedule it.
- Reflect. Review frequently. This needs to be a regular process. You can’t ignore dishes in your sink just like you shouldn’t neglect the emails, tasks, and requests. Being proactive about cleaning up your inbox and to-do list might be one of the most clarifying and anxiety-reducing activities you can do on a regular basis.
- Engage. Simply do. Work the system. Live with freedom and confidence. Tackle your most important goals for the coming year. Take command and operate with confidence. This is your life. Get off the dang nail.
What causes you enough pain to howl inside but not enough that you’ve done something about it? Stop putting up with the little things that kill your productivity and joy, and start the new year strong!
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