When you’re working on your important tasks, you shouldn’t allow other people or events to divert your attention from what you need to do. If you give attention to time wasters, you’ll not get anything done. Here are some strategies on how you should deal with time wasters:
List your time wasters
To avoid giving attention to time wasters, you need to be aware of the unproductive activities that you do often. Most of the devices that distract us have notification sounds or visual signals that attract attention. These signals simply serve as triggers for our bad habits. When we hear them, our reaction is to automatically react to them. For most people, the reaction is to give attention to the source of the distraction and to spend time with it.
This’s what happens when the phone rings or when it notifies us that we received an email. We habitually give attention to the source of the signal. The first step to stop these things from affecting your productivity is to simply be aware of them. You should go back to your time log and check when these habits happen. When you’ve identified the culprits, you should make a list of the habits that cause you to waste time.
Resist the urge to respond to distracting stimuli
As mentioned above, we’ve developed the habit of reacting automatically to notification stimuli. You can undo this habit by resisting the urge to divert your attention to the source of the notification signals. A ringing telephone, for instance, is just impossible to ignore. If you plan to work continuously, you should tell all the people who may call you that you’re will be temporarily unavailable to accommodate them. You can also let them go straight to voicemail.
You should do the same with other sources of distraction that have the tendency to take your attention away from your work. Some of the common sources of distraction are the television, smartphone apps, and unproductive tabs in the computer. You should remove them from your work area if you want to focus on your task. If this’s not possible, you should learn to resist reacting to their notification signals. E-mails should be checked only a few times per day. Learn to prioritize them in order of importance and respond accordingly. Keep your e-mail account organized and be sure to flag any junk e-mails so that you’ll not have to spend time going through and deleting them in the future.
Remove social media apps
Among the most common sources of distraction today are social media apps. They’re in our phones and other mobile devices so we can carry them pretty much everywhere. If you notice that checking your social media accounts is taking too much of your time, you should remove these apps from your phone. These apps are basically designed to get your attention to keep you hooked on them for long periods of time. You should remove them from any devices that you use for work.
Make your breaks boring
When mental and physical fatigue sets in because of work, most people feel that they need a reward. They seek activities that provide them with a mental or physical reward. The problem is that most of the rewards that we give ourselves are addictive. Over time, we easily develop a craving for the reward. There comes a point when we unknowingly overdo the rewarding part of the process.
The best way to prevent this’s by identifying addictive rewards and replacing them with less exciting activities. For example, instead of logging on to your social media accounts during your breaks, you should just sit back and rest for a while. You could listen to music or meditate in silence. When we take visually stimulating rewards, we often strain our senses with more information. Mental fatigue comes from the activity of taking in information, analyzing it, and creating an output. This’s what we do when we work. However, we follow the same process when we’re logged on to our social media accounts. As a result, the brain is still tired even after you’re done with your break time.
For your breaks, you should pick activities that don’t lead to mental fatigue. Meditation is one of the best activities that you can engage in to preserve your mental strength throughout the workday. It’s relaxing and it improves your ability to focus.
Keep your environment tidy
A messy environment can also be a reason for wasting time. It’s difficult to find things that we need if the surroundings are messy. You’ll also have some difficulty in moving around because of the mess. When put together, these small factors can cause you to waste a lot of time. When tidying up, you need to create a space where you can move freely. You should practice the same principle at work and at home. If there’re too many things lying around, you should consider reorganizing your space or giving some things away.
Prepare activities for waiting & commuting
Most people also consider traveling as a waste of time. Traveling is a time waster only if you don’t do anything while you wait. For example, if you drive to work, you can listen to an audiobook while driving. This’ll allow you to catch up on your readings while on the road. If you love reading, you could also put digital books in your phone for those times when you’re made to wait, like at the bus stop or train station.
If your job requires you to travel by air regularly, you should take advantage of the waiting time prior to boarding the airplane. Also, instead of just sleeping through your flights, you can also do some productive activity that you can fit in the time.
