[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddart here, aka The Focus B, and on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life.

[00:55] If you want to find out more.

[00:56] About my new program, check out thefocusbee.com program.

[01:02] As promised, here is the episode on managing distractions. I mentioned in a previous episode on Attention, Focus and Flow that I would cover this topic.

[01:15] To be honest, I feel I have.

[01:17] Spoken so often and so much about managing distractions that I could recite it in my sleep. Okay, so let's get started.

[01:28] Let's see if I could do it.

[01:29] In ten minutes and nail down all the fundamental aspects about managing distractions. First of all, let's look at what NIR Ayal says in his book Indistractable. What is a distraction? A distraction is what is taking you away from traction, which is what you want to be doing. For instance, if you started working on your book, that was your traction, the intention that you had to do, and you suddenly switch to social media, then you're being distracted. But if you place the intention and you were about to write a post on social media and do your engagement for your day, and that was your intention, and then you start to open your book and sort of flip through it, then the traction was actually social media and the distraction was your book. It doesn't come down to the activity. It comes down to what was your intention and where did you want to place your attention on what you wanted to place it on. This is a definition of distraction, and I find it tremendously useful. I really like NIR EAL's work and I think it is so useful and inspiring. And especially this definition is great because.

[02:49] Then we all know what is a.

[02:51] Distraction and we don't misinterpret or think that everything is a distraction. Okay, why do we get distracted? Think about it for a moment. Look back to the last time you wanted to do something and you ended up doing something else. What happened on the moment you chose to do the other thing? The distraction.

[03:25] Pretty much all the time.

[03:27] This is linked to our emotions. Maybe you are feeling bored or impatient or stressed or frustrated or uncertain what to do next. I know this is my most common one. If I have a brief moment of, oh, what was I supposed to do next? Let me just quickly check social media in those moments when you have the emotion. Pause. Pause, pause. Pause before you go to the distraction. Pause and think what am I avoiding right now? Might be avoiding the discomfort or fear of rejection. A lot of the tasks we procrastinate come from fear. Notice you're trying to avoid boredom or frustration or anger or whatever it is. Pause if it helps. Get up, leave the computer, walk a bit round, breathe. Think what do I want to do next? What was important for me? What did I write in my calendar? Was I planning come back down and do it. It's so ironic and interesting that we believe that distractions find us. You might sincerely think that you need to always have your email on and the email has distracted you with the notification. But that's not the case. You can use systems and ways where you turn off all your notification. You put a time on for 20 minutes. You do your most important task, you stop your timer, you open up your emails and you check them. This might sound rigid, but by doing this you're giving yourself a gift. The gift of attention, of energy, of joy, because you'll be fully focused during that time. And it's way more satisfying for your brain, for you, for your work, to just do that one thing than it is to constantly toggle between different activities. So this is where emotions play a role and they create these distractions. And instead you want to identify, notice what's happening and come back to traction. And a great thing here is that when you practice this, when you practice going straight to attention and traction, then you build the habit. You build the habit of bringing yourself back on track. But if, on the other hand, every time you feel bored, frustrated, annoyed, upset, impatient, you name it, you automatically go to social media, emails, YouTube, your phone, then you're building the habit of being distracted and they get harder to break as time goes on. Of course it is still possible, it just makes it harder. So the more you build the habit of traction, the easier it will be for you to be focused, for you to get into flow and not to be distracted. This is probably, I feel, the fundamental pillar around managing distractions.

[06:54] A few other items that might be.

[06:56] Useful for you is of course, if you can tweak your environment to make it easier. For instance, if you have a tendency to go on your phone, switch it off, put it in the other room. If you have a tendency to check certain browsers, get something like Cold turkey or blocking app to block them during certain days of certain hours during the day. So you can use different things. Nir'aal refers to this as hacking external distractions. So you can hack them by having different tools and apps and notifications and all of these things. But working on the emotions is really the most important. And this is really the biggest bang for your buck because when you become too dependent on these external hacks, they can be super useful. They can help you to rebuild the habits that you need of focus and attention. But you're not training the muscle in the same way to come back, to come back to your most important task or your activity or what you're doing. So it's important to train that muscle and not just to rely on the external hacks. As I mentioned in the previous episode, being able to manage distractions, to get back on track and be focused will support you to be in flow. And this is first of all an amazing feeling, but also where you do your best work, you're 400% time more effective. So it's a pretty good thing to be able to do. Okay, so these are some of the fundamental blocks here looking at managing your motions so that you don't get distracted hacking your external environment and just tweaking. I like this word tweak. I've noticed I use it a lot. Tweaking, changing your environment around you to make yourself less distracted. This is a combination of different things and notice. Notice. I'm always saying notice because do notice. When do you get distracted? Is it because you're tired? Work on your physical energy or when you have a food come in the afternoon, could you have had a lighter lunch? Or when you get a certain email because you hate those tasks. Find a way to get yourself motivated and pumped up to do them. Because the more you notice, the more you have awareness on how you manage your attention and your energy levels for that matter, and your time for that matter, the more you're able to do something about it. Because if you don't have that awareness, if you don't realize what is impacting you and what is changing your relationship with all of these resources, how can you shift it? How can you shift it? You can even have a tracker either for your energy levels, that's also great for time tracking is fundamental, and I've spoken about this, but also for your attention. Notice more, more and focused in the morning, less in the afternoon or the other way around or different tasks because once you track things seriously, you can measure it, you can change it. It seems so obvious when I say it that way, but it's not something that many people practice and you don't have to use an actual tracker, but just start to pay attention, start to notice when you're most distracted, when you're most focused and what helps you to be focused and what helps you to manage distractions. At one point, for instance, I noticed that I was checking LinkedIn too often during the day and so I had a post it where I wrote LinkedIn and I would write a bar next to it every time I went on.

[10:46] And my aim was to check it.

[10:47] Maximum three times a day. So I just started making one, two, three. And this would help me to be more aware, more focused, and notice when I was checking LinkedIn and I maybe didn't have to or need to, I wasn't posting something or it wasn't my engagement time, or I didn't need it to check someone that I was about to interview, for instance. This is one example, but the idea here is just to be more aware and then this will help you to have less distractions, or actually to manage the distractions and not go down that route, stay on the route of traction, as NIR Ayal puts it. I hope this has helped you. If you're struggling with distractions, know that many people are. It's also linked to the fast dopamine you get from other things, and by managing your emotions, this will help you to be more focused and less distracted. If you found this episode enjoyable, useful, and it has supported you, please make sure to leave me a review if you haven't done already. This makes such a huge difference for the podcast and I really, really appreciate it. So thank you so much for tuning in and wishing you such a wonderful day.

[12:07] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Be Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend.

[12:25] Or a family member.

[12:27] Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focus day ahead.