How To Eliminate Distractions & Eat The Frog (Least Desirable Task) First
Skyrocket your productivity to experience massive results
Any ambitious goal will require laser-focused effort.
The only way to experience this level of focus is to eliminate, kill, and destroy distractions.
Our Top Distractions
Phones
Internet
Hangouts
Television
Social Media
Unrelated tasks
Communication (texting, calling, emailing, etc.)
What Are Unrelated Tasks?
I’m highlighting unrelated tasks because they insidiously destroy our productivity.
Unrelated tasks are activities that don’t bring tangible results to your primary goals.
Unrelated Task Example
You’re finally ready to start working on your goal for the day!
Then you remember you still haven’t responded to your best friend. Instead of working on your goal, you decide to call your best friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with and end up spending an hour on the phone.
After the call, you get hungry, so you make dinner.
Then you realize it’s time to take a shower.
After your shower, you see some unorganized stuff around the house, so you clean that up.
You then hear a social media notification, hop on the app, and lose 30 minutes mindlessly scrolling or watching videos.
You frequently leave your tv on and see your favorite show pops up on the screen. You promise yourself you’ll only watch one episode, which turns into multiple episodes…
Finally, you realize it’s late. You ponder how you made zero progress on your goals and feel bad, but remember that tomorrow is a new day.
“I’m going to finally start focusing tomorrow.”
You make a promise to yourself that you will finally focus.
This cycle repeatedly happens for many people until years have passed by without making much progress on their goals.
Shut The Phone Off Or Use It Selectively
I recommend shutting your phone off entirely if you struggle to focus when it’s on.
But here are a few other recommendations:
Keep your phone on silent. Even if you don’t check your notifications, just hearing a notification can mitigate your focus.
Remove notification banners. I manually check my notifications, which is why I miss 99% of the notifications I receive.
How I work it: My phone stays on, but I only use it selectively (e.g., listening to music, writing down ideas, task management, calendar, etc.). All communication apps are on the last screen, so I don’t even consider using them. Out of sight. Out of mind. I never see or hear notifications.
Eat The Frog—Get The Worst Of It Done FIRST
In that famous psychology experiment, kids were offered two options: You can have a marshmallow now or wait and receive more than one marshmallow. Those who refused to eat the first marshmallow (the most self-disciplined) experienced more success throughout their lives.
We tend to go for what’s easy and feels good to experience short-term pleasure.
But this will not produce much for you in the long term.
As Brian Tracy says in, Eat That Frog, get the tough stuff done first.
If your goal is to obtain a new job, apply to 15 jobs a day every morning.
If your goal is to write a book, complete one chapter first thing in the morning.
If your goal is to complete one book weekly, start your morning with 1 hour of reading.
If your goal is to improve your health and optimize your weight, get your workout done first thing in the morning.
Before engaging in unrelated behaviors or distractions, get your sh*t done so you can reach your goal.
Don't expect results if you continue with your procrastinating habits and consistently allow distractions to manage your life.