Distraction

Your brain is a busy, busy place. You try to concentrate on your work — doing that marketing stuff or that article or balancing your books — but you “come to” an hour later on Facebook, looking at your childhood best friend’s baby photos.

Ahh, yes. We all do it. We’d like to be perpetually productive and professional, but our creative minds don’t willingly take on that yoke. Although you are a grown adult, you have a distractable three-year-old inside your brain throwing tantrums, picking daisies, and — ooh! What’s that over there? A raven mind that’s drawn to on shiny objects. The Buddhists call it monkey-mind.

Whatever you call it, despite knowing all the things you’re supposed to do in business, something else takes over. Regularly.

Distraction happens

As I type this, there’s an American Robin sitting in a tree close to my window, singing full tilt boogie. He’s so near, I can see his bright yellow beak opening and his body expanding with each burst of song. It’s all I can do to not watch him for the next 20 minutes instead of write this.

Full disclosure: I started this article two weeks ago and have been in compulsive Twitter-checking mode since. Hmm…

So whether your distraction is caused by long-term stress or a hard-wired condition like ADHD, it happens. Our brains are not machines. They’re not meant to be “on” constantly.

Your mind wants to gobble up cheese puffs

When your mind’s distractable, anything that’s visual and easy to consume is like a bag of cheese puffs for your brain. When I’m in a brain-snacky kind of mood, I’ll click on just about any link that crosses my path. My brain snackage includes Facebook, Twitter, email, cakewrecks.com, and cake decorating videos on YouTube. It’s true.

There are alternatives to letting distraction drive you (and those who love you) nuts. Here are a few:

Five ideas for shifting distraction

1. The power of a pause

If you notice yourself doing these cheese-puffy activities in the moment, pause. Don’t berate yourself. Just stop and gently ask yourself what you need.

Very often we chomp on brain snacks because we’re tired, overwhelmed, or feel uncertain about how to begin something big. Very often, I find myself online when I need a break.

So I stop and ask, “Is this what I want to do right now? Is this activity nourishing me? What do I need?” Asking these questions can invite curiosity and help you redirect your attention in a positive, respectful way.

2. Let ‘er rip

It’s important to recognize that having a distractable mind isn’t a bad thing. You’re not lazy or lacking in discipline. You’re creative. You’re curious. Your mind is naturally wired for discovery and insight!

When you have these gifts, you can honor them by allowing time for them. You might still nibble on mental cheese puffs occasionally, but I invite you to be curious about what you’re longing to explore. And then do it!

Instead of obsessively watching cake decorating videos on YouTube, I signed up for a month-long fondant decorating class. It was so much more fun and engaging (and delicious) to practice this new skill than watching any video! What do you find fascinating? Make a date with it. Indulge it. Have fun!

3. Try something other than force

Have you ever noticed yourself using force to focus on and complete something? Sometimes force is effective. Sometimes, no matter how much you force, your work starts to drag to a snail’s pace. Instead of strenuously pushing pushing pushing to get something done, give your brain some down time.

Give yourself an on-purpose distraction. Do something different. Get up, move around, get the mail, stretch, put some stuff in the recycle bin. Just get away from the project for a few minutes and see what happens.

4. Write for clarity

When I’m super-distracted, I grab a blank sheet of paper and a purple pen, sit on the floor (away from my desk), and write down everything I’m trying to hold in my head.

Writing things by hand is a powerfully integrative activity. It only takes a few minutes to get it all down on paper — and it feels like setting down a 10lb bag of cheese puffs. Get it all out of your head. Suddenly you feel lighter and clearer.

In Office Spa Day, I encourage folks to do this kind of brainstorming. Once you’ve offloaded the list onto paper, I invite you to choose the one easiest, funnest, most do-able thing on the list. When you start doing that one thing, overwhelm turns into focus and motivation. It’s amazingly simple and so effective!

5. Practice slowing down

Sometimes distractibility is a sign that you’ve been busy and you expect to be busy for-basically-ever. It’s not fun, and lack of focus is a symptom of a life out of balance. Slowing down can help.

Some people rightfully resist the idea of slowing down because it seems counter-productive. How does slowing down get through the to-do list? Some are afraid if they slow down, they’ll never start back up again. As I mentioned, your brain can’t go-go-go constantly without compromising functionality.

The beauty of slowing down is contrast. When you take a break from the Internet for a weekend or afternoon, or when you sit and read a book instead of racing through email, you recalibrate your sense of what’s normal. You re-integrate a new, healthier pace for your brain and body. Sometimes you can even remember that there’s more to life than getting more stuff done (like hugging, savoring a meal, or contemplating clouds).

I’ve written a bunch about the value of retreating. So has Jen Louden and Elizabeth Gilbert and a gaggle of other awesome people. Maybe there’s some merit to this slowing down thing. Just maybe.

Distracted?

If you’re distracted, just know that you’re in good company. Setting an intention to be kind to yourself and compassionate in your solutions can make a big difference.

Are these ideas helpful? What else helps transform your distraction?

Guest blogger,  Anne Forbes

From Lists to Circles

I am a list-maker. I especially excel when it comes to To-Do lists in a variety of forms. Lately, I’ve found that my linear lists are not serving me well. They need to be re-done every week or so, they aren’t flexible, they get messy, and they get buried under the current project on my desk.

I am also a Wheel-keeper. That means that I track the seasons and cycles of my life in tune with the natural world, using circular templates that I created called the Wheels of Time and Place, and I teach others to join me in the rewards of this practice. Recently, during an Office Spa Day with Jen, I experienced breakthrough:

Get those to-dos onto a circle!

A Wheel of To-Do’s for a Year

My inspiration for this idea comes from Marian, who has been keeping circular Wheel of the Year journals with me for a number of years. One of her innovations is to use her Wheel to create and track her To-Do list through the seasons. In her own words,

“I use a Wheel of the Year to track what’s happening with the sun, moon, and planets, as well as projects I would like to accomplish throughout the year. I write down each task on a sticky note, in a specific color for different categories. I move the sticky notes around as needed to adjust the timing. I remove a sticky note when I’ve accomplished a project, so by the end of the year there are only a few left. So instead of filling up, it’s like an emptying out, which is a very satisfying feeling!”

To-Do Lists for Shorter Time Frames

My self-appointed task during the Office Spa Day was to take my current linear to-do list and transfer it to a Wheel, which I post on the wall behind my desk. I found that looking at a whole year at once was too much, so I set it up for three months, leading up to the Summer Solstice.

I divided my To-Do Wheel into four categories, sized by their relative importance to me:

1. Creative-Growing Edges, the largest category
2. Current Teaching and Outreach
3. Business (marketing, ecommerce, book-keeping, etc.)
4. Stuff, the smallest and most miscellaneous category

By the end of Office Spa time, I had all of my items off of the linear list, onto sticky notes, and onto the Wheel. It was an amazing feeling! I selected an image for the center that reminds me to abide in a feeling of equanimity.

At the end of each day, I remove the tasks that I have completed and move tasks for the next day into the center of the Wheel. This is also a time that I often divide a large task into smaller ones.

To be sure that I am looking ahead, I add longer range plans as placeholders in their appropriate category. This helps me keep them in mind while streamlining the workflow before me in the moment.

The result – more joy in my work, more focus, and a feeling of integration – just what circles are best at doing!

Wise woman Anne Forbes failed her first attempt at retirement and instead created the Wheels of Time and Place, an attractive toolkit and set of practices for connecting to the natural world every day. The toolkit holds a set of circular journals that individuals, groups, or classrooms use as nature journals, storytelling journals, spiritual journals, or a combination. You can read more about her and her work at www.partnersinplace.com.

It’s happened enough times that it’s become a joke: It’s not Office Spa Day unless someone breaks a shredder.

All that vigorous cleaning and the poor shredders don’t stand a chance!

Why shred in the first place?

Besides the fact that I live in the identity-theft capital of the U.S.? It’s just smart.

What is currently working well for me:

We own a shredder. That’s a good start. Technically, it belongs to Inspired Spouse, but I do occasionally use it. Yup.

(I’m fishing… can you tell?)

What I’m currently working on:

Everything else. I know I should shred things like account numbers and checks and stuff, but I tend to err on the risky side, I’m afraid.

The shredder lives in Inspired Spouse’s office, not mine. So I have to (ungh!) get up from my desk to use it. I’d rather recycle.

How do YOU do your shredding?

Please share your pearls of wisdom. Help is needed in the Inspired House! : )

Share your insights and ideas! Your comments on your own process are welcome. House rules: Give advice to me or others only when it’s specifically requested. This makes exploring safe and learning possible for every reader.