First, here's my story:
Today was supposed to be an easy work day for me. I had my schedule set up (or, so I thought) and even had time worked in for an outing with my daughter. Then . . . it happened. I couldn't open a client's attachment and I had a project due for that same client. To top it off, Twitter kept going down. All of the sudden my easy day looked tougher.
Now, I don't know about you, but I find problems extremely distracting. If too much goes wrong I tend to get flustered and have trouble focusing. Well, all did end well. I got my projects done and I'm getting this post up. Still, I'm eager to learn some tips for dealing with distraction.
Here are some of the top tips for dealing distractions, by category.
Musical Solutions
An amazing number of twitterers deal with distractions through music. Here's what they said:
- From Diane Penna of Mindscribing: " Serious answer- listening to music helps me work, odd that "background noise" takes my mind off distracting thoughts."
- From Mdy: "Setting the iPod to loop on a song that I like but have already heard lotsa times blocks out noise and helps me concentrate."
- From Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings: "Another technique is to use headphones and my favorite (smooth jazz in my case) music. It isolates me in a sortof 'tangible' way."
A number of twitterers mentioned changing their location:
- From Maria Palma of Salon de Maria: "I go somewhere real quiet and listen to soothing music. I come back to work refreshed and less distracted."
- From Grant Griffiths of Home Office Warrior: "I take the MacBook and go to the coffee shop. Seriously, I find a change in location can help."
- From Bob Younce of Writing Journey: "Change environment -work away from the home office. Other times I just need to indulge the distraction for a little while."
Some solutions involved cutting one's self off from technology:
- From Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings: "Uh... turn off Twitter? :-) "
- From Brandon Satrom of Words of Redemption: "Kill the Internet connection."
Other people offered their own unique approaches:
- From adbullock of Website Content Made Easy: "I bribe myself by offering small rewards like a five minute break for stretching and music when I finish my next 2 articles."
- From James Chartrand of Men with Pens: "Just stop working. You'll enjoy the break and write better, faster and more creatively when the distraction is done."
- From Diane Penna of Mindscribing:"it depends on what's distracting me...if it's the kids...forget it."
- From Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings: "At a previous life, I used to hang a sign across my cube opening that said something like, 'sorry, busy right now.'"
Leave a comment and let us know.
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I am definitely part of the "listen to music" camp. Good headphones that cover my ears work best for me to drown out all of the other noise going on. Even with the music fairly loud I can concentrate better on what is in front of me.
Posted by: Trey Meier | May 21, 2008 7:21 PM | Permalink to Comment