Distractions

I have been staring at a blank blog for the past 30 minutes. In that time, I have flipped to two other websites and checked my email in another window. About 10 minutes out of the 30 were spent staring off into space, daydreaming. I have so much going on in my head and around me that it is hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Writing a post. This is how most of my work starts off. Once I have a solid idea and actually start working, I get in a zone and everything around me turns to white noise. It's the getting started and shutting off the distractions, that is tricky. Christian Jarrett, a psychologist, warns that having email, social media and other distractions open and readily available while you are trying to be productive, may not be the smartest idea. He says that even though we may tell ourselves that we are going to take a five minute break to check our email, the break usually takes a lot longer. Once you break from working, it is easier to stay on a break and get distracted by other things. Instead of ignoring distractions, he advises we get rid of them. He says, "we must strive to remove them entirely from our field of attention. Otherwise, we'll end up using half our mental energy just keeping ourselves from breaking our own rules" ( Manage Your Day-To-Day, 83-84). I get distracted very easily and I am working on becoming more focused. Today, I worked without music or Netflix playing in the background and have found that I have been very productive!