There are plenty of solutions to reduce distractions and increase your focus. But for everyone it is not easy to find solutions that don’t only address the symptoms of problems but the actual root cause.
One of today’s predominant problems is linked to our inability to focus properly. Looking up solutions to that problem you’ll find solutions that are what I call symptomatic solutions (Turn off your phone, close your emails while working, Get rid of notifications, …).
While these help to manage external distractions they don’t with all internal distractions. Blocking out distractions is surely decreasing the potential supply of distractions but not solving the root cause problem.
What is the root cause problem ?
The root cause to our distractioness is that our brain evaluates new incoming input on an absolute basis based on one variable: New or old? New information tends to be more interesting than whatever it is you are doing, at least for a brief moment in time, before you can evaluate that new information with everything else.
How do you evaluate incoming information? Through a life management system. The real solution to increasing your focus and reducing your distractions.
Without a life management system, you have to resort to respond to what is brightest, latest and loudest. You resort to hoping that you are making the right choices, hoping you are doing the right thing.
With a life management system, you go to bed at night knowing you have made your best.
That’s a whole new game !
What is a life management system ?
1) It’s a way of thinking it’s a process of how to think your your work
2) It’s a tool
Thinking comes first. Tools come second.
The tools don’t matter as long as you have not mastered the thinking process. How many different tools have you used in your life? How many have you sticked to?
Make a self check!
1) Do you have a systematic thinking approach to your work?
2) Do you have tools that match with that thinking process?
3) Do you have proper work habits that have been priorily identified by you?
One thing you can do right now is a big mindset shift. One that can change the game for you. Ready ?
STOP TAKING YOURSELF TO SERIOUSLY
More than not, it is our Ego, our own selves that hinders us from creating a life management system. Why ? Because we want to be rock stars, highly productive, strong, powerful, great at everything and refuse to recognize that we often perform… Well under our potential.
Recognizing that we are inconsistent, emotional, changing, fluctuating human beings is the first step to recognize that we need a system that is better than ourselves. One that takes into account that we are beautiful imperfect human beings.
That’s when we open up to the idea of building a life management system. One on which we are going to depend. Just like we do with water, food, sun and air. It takes a dose of humility.
And thus begins your journey on highly productive road !
FULL TRANSCRIPT
For everyone, it’s not it’s not really easy to to know whether or not the solutions you have at hand are really addressing symptoms or addressing the root cause.
And one of the problems we’re facing today is our need for focus. Or I should say the problem is our inability to focus. So we’re constantly being distracted. And when you look up solutions to that problem, how can I increase my focus? How can I decrease my distraction ness, you find many solutions that in my, in my opinion, in my mind, are really symptoms oriented. You know, for example, reduce distraction by turning off your phone, putting it on not disturbing me, close up your email, or reduce the pings you know, the notifications, tell people that you’re working on something, you don’t want to be distracted and go on a retreat for a week and deep dive on something. So there are solutions that will reduce the distractions, but I should say here, mainly the external distractions. And so you receive notification, you receive new information, new input, and all those external inputs, you can manage them by these tips and tricks on how to reduce the distractions, but they still lack the ability to reduce your inner distractions, your own thinking, your own thought process, your own emotions, your own your own wants, needs that fluctuate, you know, there, you’re not a robot. So thinking, yeah, I’ll block out all the distractions from outside and that and that is it is a little bit of a wishful thinking, I personally believe no offense here. And that is still symptomatic. It’s an approach to symptoms and not the root cause.
Because in essence, what would be what is the root cause here? What is the root problem, the root problem is that when new information comes in to our brain, we have a tendency to evaluate on an absolute basis, the new information based on one criteria, and that is the information new or old ? New information is always more interesting than old information. And to your brain, whatever you’re doing is old information when faced with the new input. So the evaluation happens, on my opinion, highly inefficient basis, you know, like, you’re not actually comparing the information with what you should be comparing the information that comes in, in order for you to evaluate should or should I not be distracted or geared to that new information. But the only way you can actually do that kind of evaluation is that you have something to compare that new information with, you need a system, you need a life management system, that is the one and only solution to increasing your focus and reducing the distractions, Here comes whenever I receive an email, whenever my clients receive an email or a call, what happens is: They have a systematic approach to analyzing and deciding on whether or not that new information becomes is relevant, and needs their attention right now. And they all tell me that prior to this approach, and to the systematic thinking process, the fear of missing something was too big, the the inner distraction, the inner pressure was too big to not attend to those information. But that what that really meant is that people were much more reactive to their lives instead of being highly proactive. What that means is that you’re constantly stressed out that you might be missing something you might not be attending to what you should be attending. So you hope you know you’re in a lot of hoping you hope that you do right. Do you hope that you did good, you hope that you did the right work the right task, you hope you hope you hope instead of knowing it’s a whole new game when you get too bed at night, and you know, you’ve done your best you know, you’ve done your best not you’ve been the best not you’ve been perfect that’s just doesn’t exist. But you know, you’ve done your best. That’s a whole new game. In order for you to get there. You need a life management system. What is a life management system?
1) It’s a way of thinking it’s a process of how to think your your work, you know, stop thinking about your work and start thinking through your work. That is how do you approach your work, so you need a thinking pattern.That’s a habit to develop. 2) It’s a tool You need tools, you know, you need an organizational tool doesn’t matter if you work on paper? Do you work on mostly on the computer? Do you work? Do you like Microsoft tools? Do you like Google tools? Do you like Trello? Do you like Asana? Do you like to Wunderlists, ToDoIsts ? Omnifocus? There are so many tools, you know, but these tools come second. Second, not first. Now, most people when they need to reduce the distraction, increase the focus, increase their productivity, they go wham: “I need a tool, I need a new tool, sexy new tool.” If you don’t have a sink, thinking process, those tools you won’t get to them, you won’t use them appropriately. Just make a self check. Do the tools that you use really reduce or annihiliate the stress level and increase your productivity? Just do a self check. And I’m betting for most people, it’d be like yeah, honestly, to help for quiet a day, maybe a week, maybe a month if you if you’ve been really good. But no, I don’t actually feel total change in my, yeah, it’s not transformational, and we’re here for a transformation, right? I am for transformation, I’m for living up to your real potential. And that requires a real transformation. So make that self check. 1) Do you have a systematic thinking approach to your work? 2) Do you have tools that match with that thinking process? Second question. And third, 3) Do you have proper work habits that have been priorily identified by you? Because when it comes to increasing your focus or reducing the distraction, the first mind set shift you can be doing right away. Is, and that’s a big one. Okay, it’s it really is a big one. Stop taking yourself too seriously. People are gonna say what the EFF has that to do with productivity, focus and distraction? A lot. me thinking I need to rock it, I need to be highly performing I need to manage it all, is what caused me to be highly unproductive. In essence, it’s my ego is me taking myself very seriously, that got in the way of me building something that was better than me. I need a system that is better than myself. And it’s a scary thought. For you to rely on a system that’s dependency. That’s that’s like the opposite of, in essence, what I’m all about, you know, “living up to your potential” is becoming free. And me being depending on other clients being depending on a system requires, I think, a small dose of humility, because if the system breaks will I break is in essence, my big fear. But what I have found is that, you know, I am an emotional being I am irrational, most of the time, I am inconsistent most of the time, like my wish for being a perfect robotic algorithm that functions properly all the time. Dude, that’s just wishful thinking, I regularly fall back in the trap of wishing that, but it’s just not the reality I live in. So I need a system that is better than me, that alleviates the fact that I’m emotional that sometimes I wake up in the morning, I just go “I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to live right now. Like right now. I just want to close my eyes, shut everything down and be off.” That’s just my reality. How can I still function, when I’m in that state? If I rely on myself to being on top of my level to function properly? I won’t. I won’t. And so I need a life management system that is outside of me. And that’s the moment when I have something that is better than me. I have built I’ve put in my thoughts in that’s the moment where I become able to actually evaluate new information with everything that is stored in my system. Thoughts come in, I jot them down, put them in my system and get to them on time. If I wouldn’t do that. I’ll be like, well, I need to attend it right now. Because if I don’t attended right now, what? Forget it. And I want to forget I want to forget everything because right now I’m here with you. I’m thinking about you. And I don’t want to be thinking a second later. I want to be thinking I don’t want to be thinking about what I will do this afternoon or later this evening or tomorrow. I don’t know my system knows but I don’t know That’s key for me to be evaluating whatever comes in rec calls, I receive emails like everyone, but I decide whether or not I should be distracted right now. That’s called being meaningfully engaged. That’s called being present. All here. All hands on deck, all my energy, all my resource, all my thinking all my creativity, here and now every step of the way, present. Only through a life management system. So if you want to get more proactive in your life less reactive. If you want to cut down distractions, sure. Close up your phone. Right? I don’t know all those newsletters, like if you have too many newsletters you might want to unsubscribe, some newsletters, not mine ! 🙂 You might want to unsubscribe things do you mind when you raise apps on your phone, you might want to turn off notifications altogether. Like all that is all good and fine. I’ll do that as well myself. But that is just not solving the core problem. And the core problem of distraction is not too much information because that’s the constant reality. It’s not too many information coming in because that’s the constant reality. What distracts us is our inability to safely, soundly and in a relaxed way evaluate those information coming in. That’s what distracts us. It’s not the information per se. It’s our inability to evaluate on a relative basis, that new information with a given system. So I hope that helps. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please share and comment, I’ll be happy to review your thoughts! Enjoy your day and as always, live up to your potential !