The Mindset Mentor - Ep 64 - Distract Your Distractions

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

Billionaires and bums all get the same amount of hours in each day. The difference between the two is how productive each are throughout every day. In this episode I teach you my 8 tips on how to distract your distractions to make sure each day is more productive, which will in turn help with your success. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Before we dive into today's episode, if you would like a free copy of our motivational ebook called Hack Your Goals, the Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Success, go to mwfmotivation.com and download it. It's already been downloaded over a thousand times, so go ahead and get your copy now. All right, I'll get you the podcast right now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast, which I am proud to say has been rated the number one podcast in iTunes new and noteworthy in six different categories, including self-help and business, and is a podcast designed to help you grow into the best version of yourself in 10 to 20 minutes. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we'll take a life topic, break it down, discuss it, and leave you with thoughts to impact your life and mind. My name is Rob Dial, and the podcast

starts now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast. I'm your host. My name is Rob Dial, and I hope that you are having an amazing day. And I hope that if you like this episode, you please share it with a friend and that you subscribe to us however you're listening to us. So today we're going to be talking about distractions and how to distract your distractions. So the thing about distractions is we all realize, we know it's inevitable. There's going to be distractions. They will come about no matter what, no matter how hard or how much we do to try to get away

from distractions, we're eventually going to get some. But the difference between an average productive person versus an extremely productive person is the amount of distractions that they allow, and I use that word on purpose, they allow to get to them. Because ultimately, we're all given the exact same amount of time each and every day, so we might as well be as productive as we possibly can when we decide that, hey, this is actually time to work and get some stuff done. And this all spurred from an article that I read about research that was done on 300 undergraduates. And they found that with the 300 undergraduates, that a 2.8 second

distraction while they were in the middle of working on something caused the number of errors that they had on their project to double. Let me repeat that. 2.8 second distraction caused a double in errors. So don't think that a quick text response or even just reading the preview of a text won't distract you that much. So what we're going to talk about with distracting your distractions, I'm going to give you eight tips that I came up with. I tried to get them less, but I guess, you know, this is to more of your benefit because you get extra tips on this. But I'm going to give you eight tips on how to distract your distractions. So the first tip is to control your notifications. I think that we all know this. We all know to control our

notifications, but there's a difference between knowing that you're supposed to control your notifications versus actually doing and actually controlling your notifications. So what I mean by this, when it's time to work, when it's time to get stuff done, I'll tell you what I do. I turn off my cell phone. Actually, I don't turn off. I turn it on silent and I put my cell phone upside down. So therefore my phone cannot distract me at all. If you have a way to turn off your email notifications on your computer, which I'm pretty sure that you do. If you're able to do so, do that as well so you don't get any pop-ups or email notifications that could

potentially distract you while you're getting something done. Turn off all the notifications that you possibly can. Anything that could pop up and cause you to break your concentration of what needs to really be taken care of, needs to try to be blocked. How can you let as little notifications as possible get to you when you're trying to be productive? So that's the first one. Control all of your notifications. The second one is to make times when you really need to be productive, the no social times. What do I mean by that? No social times, no checking Facebook, no checking Instagram or Twitter. Hey, I would, I would give you this tip because I've done it. I would, except for Instagram, I have to have Instagram for our account that has, you know, 20 some odd thousand, 23, 24,000 followers on it.

Besides that, I don't have Facebook or Twitter on my phone. So I would delete whatever you can from your phone as far as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever it is. If you can delete it, I would do it. It will help you be more productive. Also, you probably heard me say before, if you've listened to other episodes that I've done, use News Feed Eradicator on your computer. It is a Google Chrome extension. It's called News Feed Eradicator because Facebook becomes addicting. It's pretty much instinctual sometimes just to get on your computer, go straight to Facebook. And what News Feed Eradicator does is it will allow you to go to Facebook, but it will completely delete your news feed and it will

put a motivational quote up instead of allowing you to see your newsfeed. So I would recommend that for sure if you can put that on there, if you use Google Chrome. It is incredible. I love it and it has gotten me so much less addicted to Facebook than I used to be, which is an incredible thing. So I would say this. Honestly, if you don't need a specific social network, just delete it completely if it's possible. It will help you so much as far as just being more productive throughout the day. Personally, I took data off of my phone, so I don't have data. It sounds crazy, and it is one of the best decisions I've ever made. And the reason, never, I'm being a little bit crazy there. Not one of the best decisions I've ever made. And the reason, never, I'm being a little bit crazy here.

Not one of the best decisions I've ever made, but it is a great decision for being more productive. And the reason why is because my phone, when I don't have Wi-Fi, is literally just a phone now. It's crazy. All I can get is phone calls and text messages. I know it's insane. But the cool thing about it is that I've come to realize now that it's been a few weeks where I don't have any data on my phone, that I am more into conversations

with people when I go out with my friends. Honestly, it's pretty sad because I've noticed a lot of people are just so addicted to their phones. And I used to be one of these people. It's so hard to do. I completely took data off my phone so that I could be more in the moment. If that's something that you want to do, then also save you money as well. But that's just kind of what I've noticed as far as how it's been working for me. The third tip that I'm going to give you is 25 on, 5 off. And I've told you this before. It is, let's see, it is called the Pomodoro Technique. And that means 25 minutes of working hardcore on one project, one specific project for 25 minutes. Set your alarm when that 25 minutes is up. Stop

working on it. Give yourself five minutes off to do whatever you need to do. Go to the bathroom, release your mind from whatever it is that you're working on. And if you want to go back into that same project for the next 25 minutes, do it. If you don't want to go back in that project, you have something else to do, work on something else for just that 25 minutes. So 25 minutes of hardcore working with zero distractions, five minutes off and 25 on, five off, do it as many times you possibly can throughout the day. So that is number three. Number four is to use headphones. If you can use headphones at work, I would recommend it because people are less likely to distract you and come up and talk to

you if you have headphones in. Also, if you work in coffee houses or something like that, maybe you work remote and you go to a coffee house, if you have headphones in, it's going to be harder to hear conversations around you as well, which will keep you more in tune with what you're doing. As far as the music you listen to, I recommend that you listen to music without words because that can be distracting and calming music. I listen to some type of meditation music that's supposed to be good for working. I don't know if it really is good for working or not. All I know that it's got like rain sounds and a flute and it blocks off everything that could possibly come into my ears besides just that. Tip number four, clean up. Clean up your crap. I understand. I've had to make a conscious effort

to do so, and I'm still trying to get better at it. Clean up your crap. A cluttered life is a cluttered mind. So when you clean up all of the stuff around you, your car, your inbox, your cell phone, your computer desktop with all of the fricking icons that are over your desktop and the internet tabs. Oh my gosh. I've come onto some people's computers, my friends, everybody, people that I know, and they have like 45 internet tabs open. Do you know what that does? That's just like extra bird in the back of your mind of, holy crap, look at all of this stuff that I have to do. So clean up all of this crap that should possibly be a distraction to you so that therefore it can't be a distraction. So clean up all the clutter, everything that happens to be around you, whether it be in the physical form, whether it be on the internet or on your computer as well. Number six, tip number six,

find out when you are most productive throughout the day, whenever that might be, and save that time for your most important task and protect that time with your life. And it's going to be different for everyone. This is going to be requiring some testing. Some people work really good in the morning. Some people work good in the afternoon. Some people work good at nights, work well, excuse me for my improper English, work well at nights, whatever it is. But for me, I know, and for most people from the studies that I've read, it's usually between two and four hours after waking up. So if I wake up at 6 a.m., between eight o'clock and 10 o'clock is usually going to be my best

time to work to get the most done. And that is when you want to save your most important task is to get it done at that point in time. Tip number seven, do not multitask. I don't need to dive into this one because I did an episode with Jay Papasan where we talk about trying to multitask and how it's actually impossible and makes you less productive to multitask. It actually makes you 20% less productive to multitask instead of actually, I don't know if you would say single tasking, which is something I probably just made up,

versus just concentrating on one thing. Do not multitask. I don't need to dive any more into it. If you want to go back and listen to the episode, Pop is on, it's back there somewhere. It's probably in the 20s or 30s as far as episodes go. So that's number seven, do not multitask. And number eight, the last one, plan ahead for what could be a distraction to you and figure out how to avoid it if possible. We all know that there's some distractions that could come up, people that could distract us. If you see them walking across the room and you're at work and you have your headphones in, try not to make eye contact, whatever it might be. Plan ahead the distractions that could possibly come up and find out how to combat that so that you can stay as productive as possible. I saw a picture of a guy the other day that was at work and when he really needs to

be as most productive, he puts his headphones in and he had a piece of paper taped to his back that he had typed up and printed out, and it said something along the lines of, hey, I would love to talk to you, but I am in my most productive time right now. I cannot talk to you at all. He was the guy who obviously planned ahead to distract his distractions, and so that's why I say number eight, try to plan ahead, and whatever could be your distraction, figure out how to avoid it. So really quick to wrap up and go over it again. Number one, the eight tips. Number one, control your notifications, turn off whatever you can. Number two, make times when you really need to be productive. You're no social times. Number three, 25 on five off 25 minutes of

hardcore working five minutes of no working, 5 minutes of no working. Number four, use headphones. Number five, clean up all of the crap on your computer and in your physical life as well. Number six, find out when you're most productive throughout the day and save your most important task for that point in time. Number seven, do not multitask. And number eight, plan ahead for what could be a distraction and figure out how to avoid it. So I hope that you liked this episode. If you did, well, hey, share it with somebody that you think might be able to get something out of it. And with that, I'm going to leave you how I leave you every single time. Make it your mission today to make somebody else's day better. Whatever you

can do, put a smile on somebody else's face. And I hope that you all have an amazing day. his face. And I hope that you all have an amazing day. Well, that's it for today's podcast. If you want the show notes for this episode, they can be found at mwfmotivation.com. Also, if you liked this episode, please spread the love and share it with a friend because it's our mission to help as many people as we can. And to keep in touch, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Both handles are at MWFMotivation with no spaces. Now you know what time it is. So go out and make your dreams a reality. Outro Music