The information overload
you are pummelled with every day, is one of the most dangerous threat to your productivity
and effectiveness. The amount of information available is exploding. There are
more than 2 billion emails sent every day, 75 million blog posts are published
every day, half a million books are published each year and there are almost 20
000 magazines in publication.
This unrelenting
bombardment is further multiplied, by the constant barrage of commercial advertisements;
we are exposed to throughout the day. In the early 90’s we were exposed to
about 2000 marketing messages a week. This number has grown exponentially over
the past few years. We are now exposed to over 30 000 commercial marketing
messages each week. This 1500 % increase has happened in less than 20 years.
Distractions are everywhere
Add social media, text
messages and the constantly ringing mobile phone into the distraction mix and
you can see that if we allow ourselves to be involved with all this
distraction, we have very little time left over to do anything meaningful in
our lives or businesses each day. The incredibly fast advancement in technology,
has almost outstripped our ability to manage and effectively utilize all these
new tools. Our lives have become an endless cycle of pointless and wasteful
information overload. We seem to just bounce from one communication activity to
another, with very little conscious thought.
Does this sound a little like
what is going on in your life right now? Does your day start with a smart phone
next to your bed, filled with emails, text messages and even missed telephone
calls? The first thing you do as you wake up every morning, is pick up your
phone and allow the myriad of emails, Facebook posts, twitter updates to
distract you and set the tone for your day. As you walk into your office every
day is the first thing you see, a computer, which is filled with emails and
social media updates and requests? To add to this mayhem, your mobile phone
starts ringing and an endless stream of people enter and leave your office,
with endless questions and requests.
Prioritisation and Task Completion are
Distant Memories
You are of course unable
to give anything, including the people in your office your full attention,
because you are concentrating on your other computer screen at the same time.
This screen is giving you a live update of the share prices and currency
fluctuations in real time. Wow! Are you only having an incredibly busy day? The
only thing that seems to interrupt this amazing level of productivity is the numerous
pointless meetings you must attend, where everyone including you, spends more
than half their time answering emails and text messages on their smart phones.
One Busy Distracted day seems to just
blend into the next
Wow, you are really
giving it your all at this time; you are really busy, Busy, BUSY. Of course you
are completely spent when you finally stagger out of the office at around 8:30
pm after a really long 12 hours at the grindstone. You have done an amazing job
of spinning your wheels all day; you have once again achieved absolutely
nothing meaningful, or fulfilling.
Remove the distraction
This constant distraction
is the most dangerous and insidious threat to your future success. Distraction
is the fastest killer of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. Until you
learn the difference between spending your day responding to things, which
contribute nothing or very little to your life and doing productive things that
do make a difference to your life. You are wasting your day lost in
distraction. You must take back control of your puppet strings. When you do
this and you no longer allow yourself to be distracted, you will have gained
about 5 hours every day.
Learn to focus your
energy on completing a few really important tasks every day. Stop searching
your periphery for the next big opportunity or activity. Stay connected, focus
on completing those few priority tasks every day, feel productive and accept
that you will need to delay your need for instant gratification. This is a
process or an event. You need to need to make the decision right now to remove
as much distraction from your life as possible. Start slowly and build your
ability to focus your attention on the really important things in your life and
you will have discovered one of the most amazing success tools around.
Focus and Complete Priority tasks
When you learn the art of
controlling your attention, you will have discovered a tool for controlling and
managing your life. Block off chunks of time in your week to carry out those
crucial priority activities, which will over time help you to create the future
you desire. These chunks of time are called “meetings
with your future” and are immovable, meetings you schedule with yourself
every day, to carry out your goal specific priority activities. Should
something come up and you are unable to conduct your daily meeting with your
future, because of a real emergency, you must reschedule the meeting.
These meetings with your
future must be made in advance each week. They should be for about 60 minutes
each every day. As you build up your meetings with your future fitness, try to
schedule two to three of these each day. This may seem impossible to you right
now. Once you wrestle by control of your time and your once again become the
master of your life, you will easily find three to four hours each day.
When you are in
the meetings with your future do the following:
- Create a silent bubble around yourself, absolutely no distractions at all.
- Set a countdown timer on your desk, with an alarm. When the time is up, stop the activity, even if you are not finished what you were doing.
- Only focus on one major project at a time.
- Each 60 minute chunk is for one project only.
- Give it your all for 60 minutes and then build in a short break for refocusing.
If you introduce this simple,
yet extremely effective tool into your life, you will immediately transform
your life and you will move your life and business onto a much higher level of
achievement..
Author: Andrew Horton Inspirational
Speakers South Africa
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