I love this Zig Ziglar quote:
“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”
It’s amazing how often we can lose their focus in a day. We get distracted by a lot of non-critical items. Or, shall I say that we allow ourselves to get distracted. Seriously, we do allow a lot of the distractions to happen which impedes our focus.
To get past the lack of focus, use this simple hack of first paying attention to what is distracting you and figure out how to minimize the impact. Keep a piece of paper on your desk and note all the things that seem to be a distraction that come up in the day. (You could do this for the week, but it’s easier to start with just one day.)
At the end of the day, set aside 15 minutes to review your distractions list to determine if the things written down were truly distractions. If they were, find ways to reduce, minimize and delete the distractions.
One of my favorite things to do with this list is to figure out who I can delegate the task to… I am a big fan of delegating so that other people can help me get things done better, faster and more effectively. As Zig Ziglar said, it’s not your lack of time, it’s your lack of direction. So, take the time to figure out what is distracting you and getting you off course and then re-prioritize and get your focus back in line. It feels awesome!
How do you deal with distractions at work?