The enemies of being productive, at work, are distractions. Squirrel! The main culprits being, besides the boss constantly asking for progress reports,: your cell phone, Facebook, YouTube, email, any number of other social media, the person next to you watching videos, the “Visitor” who burns up your precious time with stories and the latest gossip, etc.
At home the distractions are: every chore you have ever put off, your computer, social media, email, the pets (don’t get me started on that one, stupid puking cat!), etc. You get the point.
Note: The next bit of information is based on personal experience and from “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod
I have found that if I can get to work or get out of bed early, preferably really early, then I can get much needed work done. I am in/up too early for anyone to bother me and conversely I am in/up too early for me to bother anyone. Of course that doesn’t mean I am completely free of distractions, but it really helps. As I am typing this, I am standing in front of our still watching it rectify and collecting heads samples. I am not sure which task I am doing is distracting me from the other. The distilling is definitely distracting me from my writing and my writing is most definitely distracting me from my distilling. I will go with the writing is the distraction because the distilling is the more important task at hand, with larger consequences from being distracted, and the writing is the time filler.
My solution has always been to make a list and tackle one task at a time. “But I have five things that need my immediate attention”, you say and I understand, however, you can’t reasonably do all five at once. Making a list lets you see what needs to get done and checking the items off lets you see your progress. Trying to do all five simultaneously usually results in paralysis and nothing gets done or the things that do get done are half-assed and you will need to redo them. At least that has been my experience.
Is going to get a second cup of coffee a distraction? I think I’ll put that one on the top of my important tasks list. Cheers!