Tips to Manage Your Distractions

By Jo Pilon

Manage Your Digital Distractions

There are so many distractions in our work days.

Numerous emails or messages binging away, breaking your focus and enticing you want to answer. The latest post on our social media, going down a rabbit hole in our internet search. Or even co-workers stopping in for a chat about their plans for the weekend.

How do we manage these distractions?

1. Turn off the noises!

All smartphones allow you to manage your notifications so at least turn off the sound

Email programs also allow you to turn off the sound, the popup and more.

2. Check your messages and emails at certain times of the day. Not whenever a new message arrives.

3. Create a system on how to deal with your messages and emails. (And stick to it)

Some System Suggestions for Managing Emails & Messages

Some people deal with everything immediately

Others create files such as To Read; Urgent; Important etc and file the email straight into it

My strategy is to

  • Delete the useless
  • File those I want to read
  • Deal immediately with the quick fixes
  • Add the important and more complex ones to
    1. My To-Do List with a start date
    2. My OneNote To-Do with an outline of how I plan to do it. ( I do this so that when I go work on it, I have a starting point which helps me focus quickly and not waste time.

I will talk about managing other distractions another day. 

 

Work Smart Tips

Helping You Stay Up-to-Date with Technology and more…

The idea behind this series of tips is to make your life at work easier.  Most people don’t have the time or the inclination to find out every feature of the technology they use at work.

So we have decided to do it for you.

We will also share some tips on improving time management, productivity and more.

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