Distractions, Interruptions and What To Do With Them

In yesterdays post I wrote about distractions:

The first lesson I will apply is "Don't get distracted"... Faithfully focus on the steps of the Action Guide and stay the course.

When I was thinking about this lesson, it was in conjunction with not studying or referring to any other Internet Marketing or Website building "how-to" program. The idea being to focus solely on the teaching of the SBI! Video and Text Action Guide...to not get back into daily participation of forums...even the SBI! forum. To harness my time and energy on the pursuit of ONE goal.

Doing this is harder than I thought. Now that I'm "back in the game", I find myself wanting to see what's been going on...to update my old HubPages...to finally organize my notebook of Affiliate and Forum user names and passwords...all productive and useful, but not now....these are distractions.

One of my major productive flaws is creating daily To-Do lists that are too long...too ambitious. Yes, there are things that must be done daily, but in balance.

Instead of a list of 15 tasks, I'll limit the list to 6. IF I finish all those, then I can add another.

As I sit at my desk I see the stack of files to my right. A distraction. My initial response would be to tackle all the files today and get through them, but I'll commit to 1 file...completely working through it. Tomorrow, the next file, and so on until that distraction is off my desk, completed ad behind me.

A distraction does not have to be a negative thing..sometimes even things we enjoy can distract us. Instead of 2 hours of TV I'll be aware and just turn the thing off in the evening. I'll be the first to say that I am weak when it comes to limiting myself there. The theory of "A body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion" sure holds true for me. Once I sit on the sofa with the remote in hand I hear the voice in my head saying "Ok, just for fun let me see what else is on". Complete distraction.

The final thing I'll be sure to keep doing is continue implementing the "15-Minute" rule:

Anyone can do something for 15 minutes.

With the aid of a simple timer set for 15 minutes starting on projects or tasks is easier. If this sounds like something you would like to try for yourself, follow this link to the HubPages article I wrote a while back: 15 Minutes to Boost Productivity.

*** Keep in mind there will be a fine line of distinction between distraction, interruption and sharing your time with others for fellowship.

This thought came to mind as I heard the call of the billiard balls from our game room. For a fun "something to do together" my husband and I recently purchased a billiard table. We try to play a few games a day, and I like to shoot a couple of practice games by myself at night. A lesson I learned from my first year of Internet Marketing is to not get overly "obsessed"! Once that happened and all I could think of was working online (whether or not it was productive) I found that it was easy to get a bit resentful towards obligations and family...not a mistake I plane to make again!

***To achieve my goal I'll set aside a specific time of day to devote to reading the SBI! Video Action Guide. Most likely between 7pm and 10pm.

Well, being true to my theory, I'm about to make my list of 6, tackle the 1st file from the stack, then challenge myself to complete items 1-5 before 7pm!