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There is a question, you may ask, or be asked, is there any strategy to avoid the distraction and increase working productivity in the busy world today? In this article, it may be or not for your answer to the question, the 9 simple things to control your day from the distractions.

Living in modern technology nowadays, it’s easy to be stimulated and difficult to avoid distraction craved. Although, it brings a distant world to be connected closer and closer. And, there’s a huge of shared information together as a second of click a button post or search along as an acceleration development of the technology. Your day might be the same to everyone in the world and as Chris Bailey said in the TEDx Talks, from the moment of his woke up til the end of the day there was a series of screens. 

How you can get stayed focused on the intense workload during a busy day. Like the others, you may use the water cooler conversation to reduce your distraction and try to shift to another system of your brain for the rational cause of the decision. The time moves on and you recognize that there’re still many things to adjust while your distraction is still accumulating. Sometimes, you may feel that the environment is not such a good place for you to focus even at the workplace or stay at home. However, you may feel it will scatter your mind from those things we can figure out 9 simple things to control your day from the distractions. 

SCREENS – Smartphones, Smartwatch, and other devices

It’s good to gather information quickly, but it’s better to acquire valuable information effectively. Nowadays, receiving work emails and phone calls on the same device as private Facebook comments, Instagram photos, and other personal information may blur the line within the communication. Then given such technology’s addictive nature, policies to control their use at work are rarely effective, as it’s hard to enforce rules about what people can look at on their own devices. It’s usually more helpful if individuals understand and manage the challenge themselves. For example, you and your colleagues could agree to put away your phones for a certain time during the day, to help you to focus on a particular piece of work.

PHONE CALLS

The ring of a phone often prompts an intense need to answer, even if we’re deep in concentration. To minimize this source of distraction for you and your team, consider arranging a rota so that team members can take calls for one another. They can use IM to check if people are able to deal with the call. If you don’t want to turn off your personal phone because of family concerns, pre-program some quick text replies, such as “In a meeting – will return your call ASAP.” You can also explain to friends and family that you will only be available for calls at lunchtime or in the evening.

IM –  Instant Message & SOCIAL MEDIA

Try tracking your own social media activity over the course of a week, and noting down just how much time you spend on these sites during work hours. Then, schedule a few moments each day for posting updates or answering messages. Social media offers us new ways of communicating with unprecedented numbers of people. It can also be a productivity killer, taking our attention away from work tasks and breaking our concentration. However, Many workplaces use an IM platform to keep team members in touch with one another. However, it can also be a source of distraction, thanks to non-essential notifications and emojis. Get into the habit of Using IM for small, quick queries only, not for conversations. Resist the pressure to reply instantly, and consider setting specific times during the day when your status is “online.”

EMAIL

Many of the emails in our inboxes are not particularly important. However, we often feel the need to look at them as soon as they arrive. So, here are five ways to manage those messages so that they don’t take you away from important tasks. Let’s learn how to schedule checking the time, Schedule an email check-in for your less productive times, and save your peak hours for high-value work. Then you can turn the emails into an actions list. Don’t keep emails forever before your inbox becomes harder and harder to manage, and once you’ve replied to them, but the ones you don’t need in the trash, and archive or file the ones you want to keep. In addition, you may try redirecting your email to your smartphone, to help you to free up your computer from distractions. Then apply the advice we’ve given above to your personal device.

BROWSING

Reading the latest headlines, checking sports scores, and ordering new clothes online (even for the office) can easily steal 30 minutes of our time, as well as often being a breach of workplace rules. Turning off access to the internet isn’t normally an option, as organizations are increasingly using cloud-based software that requires an internet connection to work fully. But, you can install blocking software to help you to decide which websites or content you want to block for yourself. Use a brief personal browsing session as a reward for an hour or two of high-quality, focused work. Of course, the Pomodoro Technique could help you with this approach.

OTHER PEOPLE – Colleague/Boss

Unless you’re part of a virtual team, colleagues visiting your desk could be a big source of distraction. But, you’re also a manager who wants to be available for your team members. So, if you don’t want to be disturbed at times when you need to focus on a task, consider working at home, or in a conference room, as a way to avoid inadvertently inviting interruptions. If you have your own office, close the door and tell your team that you need to be left alone to concentrate for a while. In an open-plan office, make your workspace less hospitable by removing extra chairs, or standing up when a colleague arrives. If you have a frequent disrupter, talk to her about the problem, as she might not even realize that she’s distracting you.

CONFUSION 

It’s always trying to have a manageable To-Do List. Once you’re having one that’s too long can lead to procrastination, as you wonder which task to tackle next. Commit to accomplishing the two most important tasks on your list today, and put the rest on hold until tomorrow. If you discover that you are frequently dealing with urgent but unplanned inquiries, try to dig deeper into these issues and use problem-solving techniques to uncover their underlying cause. Addressing this should help you to minimize the disruption, or even eliminate it altogether. It’s just to remember that you’re part of a team, so ask your co-workers to share the load in busy periods. If you’re a manager, learn to delegate effectively.

WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Rather than trying to ignore such distractions as strong cooking smells or loud colleagues, get away from the problem. Set yourself up in an empty meeting room to regain your focus. Wear noise-canceling headphones, or play “white noise,” to blank out anything that would otherwise grab your attention.

YOU – YOURSELF

Finally, you may recognize yourself with your daily activity, behavior, or it might be your habit that from the moment of waking up until the end of the day there was a series of screens. And, especially you’re on social media. Though it’s for work or just in your private life, you feel that you can’t live without in front of the screens, even it’s just a moment. It may be the same as Chirs Bailey has described himself in TEDx Talks. It’s about you to control yourself to be far away from that screen which may cause you a distraction and cannot have time to focus on your job or the work you would more to productivity.

Those situations will cause you to get not enough sleep because of the technology distractions at your home. Thus, you’re going to need a lot of mental and physical energy to work for the day. Then it’s important to take care of yourself by managing priorities, coping with people, and have the discipline to control your use of the technology. Moreover, to avoid making yourself tired and impact your thinking caused by dehydration due to the long sleep at night, you could try to drink plenty of water, get more fresh air, take a brisk walk, and etc. during the day which will energize you. Of course, you have to try to avoid heavy lunches and sugar-laden snacks, as they can lead to a slump in concentration later in the day.

In conclusion, it’s getting started from yourself to manage all those things which could ruin your day with the distraction. To control your screening, phone calls, instant message, social media, email, browsing habits, other people’s interactions, avoid confusion, and the environment you’re standing in.