I was just doing some work on a personal finance thing. I completed one part of the job and went to my email to finish it and saw another email at the top of my inbox about something else, I clicked on that email, started dealing with that, and almost forgot to finish off the personal finance thing. This happens all the time to me. I am so easily distracted.
I got rid of my desk phone in my USV office several years ago because I cannot sit in front of my computer when I am on a call in my office. I have to do my calls on my cell phone and walk around my office, look out the window, or something else or else I will get distracted.
I struggle with distraction big time. It’s not just the attention deficit kind of distraction I just talked about. Distraction crops up in other parts of my life. The Gotham Gal is constantly on me about being distracted in conversations with her. And she’s right to be on my case about that. If she was not, I would be even worse.
I’ve been working on this for much of my adult life. I’ve made progress but the distraction urge still is very much front and center in my psyche and my unconscious. I suspect this is something I will work on all my life.
Some things that have helped me are the aforementioned coaching by the Gotham Gal, yoga, meditation (which I have not yet made a staple in my life but I’m working on that), and a general self awareness of the problem and the need to take as many distractions away from me as possible when focus is required.
I know that I will get a lot of suggestions in the comments for software tools, workflow routines, and other self improvement techniques that have helped others deal with this problem. I will thank everyone in advance for those, but I will also say that I’ve tried all of that before. And tools and techniques haven’t really worked for me. I have found getting into the root causes and developing self awareness and more serenity in my life has worked a lot better.
But I’m still pretty bad. If you find yourself on the phone with me and I sound distracted, I probably am. And please feel free to call me out on it. I would appreciate that.