Responsibility series #1 Distraction

Managing the internal distractor

Launching new series 📚

So after writing my first blog post about my recent paradigmatic transition (link here), some people wished I had gone into more concrete details about what that meant for me. What routines I got in place. What new decisions I made.

So I’m starting a new series, where I will publish chunks of wisdom I’m trying to apply in my everyday life.

There will be some story, and there will be more about what I do, personally.

Let’s start with distraction.

A man of efficiency 🤓

This writing was triggered my listening to the small audio from Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, on the Waking up app.

Oliver Burkeman was a passionate aficionado of time management practices. He was on top of everything, doing everything super efficiently. He was this guy with inbox 0. He had nailed it 😏 💪

One day though, he realized he got it all wrong. He realized he was finite and however fast he could do things, he would always have an infinite amount of things to do 😱 (yep, sorry to break it out to you). More importantly, he had optimized doing things that actually didn’t matter to him.

So he changed gears, and now tells everyone about it. Don’t fall into the efficiency trap.

Won’t you go away, distractions?? 💫

So I’m writing this text and suddenly I realize it’s not super good. It’s a bit savour-less, and it doesn’t organize well the thoughts I wish to convey. My english feels sluggish. My mind goes blank, I feel dull, I want to resign, “people aren’t actually gonna be interested anyway, so what’s the point?” I’m tempted to switch off my brain. I’m tempted to trigger up one of the 5 videos I’m currently watching.

Then, I realize I’m just on the brink of distracting myself from my task. By fear of uncomfortable emotions, brought by my perfectionist mind, I am eager to switch to something else. “Give me that hit of dopamine!!” 🧃 - We’re really not far from a drug addict 💉

It’s one of many examples when you could blame the exterior: “I didn’t mean to stop, but Joe came in and wanted to chat”, “I received a notification, these smartphones are so intrusive…”, “there was this bang outdoors, it was so loud, I had to know what was going on!”; when actually you are the one seeking distraction.

Realize it’s your brain playing a trick on you and distractions will go away.

Responsibility 👩🏻‍⚖️

So why is that part of the responsibility series? 👨‍🏫

In my paradigm shift post (part II), I explain how taking responsibility gives meaning. Responsibility also puts you in control. It makes you take responsibility of whatever is happening to you. It helps you accept the world as it is and see what you can do, given the constraints. It moves you from a victim to a leader mindset.

So take responsibility of your distractions:

• work on your mindfulness and realize when you are shying away from a task out of fear of bad emotions 🧘🏼

• work on setting boundaries so people or technology cannot tempt you 🚧

And ultimately, take responsibility of delivering on your goals, that you have thought through and are aligned with what you need and/or want to manifest in this world.

Don’t want to miss these opportunities to become the most of who you can be, do you?

Practical tips 🔩

Internal states management: 🧘🏼

• Daily meditation practice with the Waking up app

• As many times as possible in the day, trying not to be lost in thought and stay mindful of my state, to make better decisions

• Getting clear on what I want to achieve and why, every morning, and before every activity. I have to feel in my bones that it’s the right thing to do.

External excuses management: 🚧

• I don’t have any notification on my phone or laptop

• I make public time in my day when I should be absolutely free of distraction (works well with shared calendars)

  • this is currently facilitated by the fact that I’m working on my own 😁

Parting words

Couldn’t read this whole post in one go? Maybe you should try out some of the tips above 😉 Or find others that work best for you!

Or maybe it wasn’t that important for you, and maybe you could have dropped it sooner.

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Let me know if you find other interesting tips, or if you have comments about all of this! 💡