The 3 Focus-Stealers Every Purpose-Driven Woman Needs to Ditch Overcome Distraction and Take Back Your Focus
by T.L. Farris
One of the biggest dream killers is also one of the most ignored and overlooked. These little assassins slip in slowly, quietly and unfortunately unnoticed. They can be nearly undetectable and far more deadly than expected. They affect your work, your home life, and your dreams. What are these dream killers? Distractions.
“Sometimes success is 3% brains and 97% not getting distracted by the internet.” – Shane Parrish
Distractions throw you off track and slow your progress. They steal your focus and drain your energy, inhibiting your ability to achieve your dreams. I have identified 3 primary types of distractions vying for your attention and although they can be sneaky once you know what they are it will be far easier to shut them down.
Diversion Distractions
The first type of distraction is diversion distractions. A diversion distraction’s primary goal is to steal. These distractions are thieves of your focus and time. Activities that take your full focus by pulling it away from something important. A perfect and very common example of a diversion distraction is social media.In 2020, the average daily time spent on social media worldwide was 145 minutes. That’s over 2 hours stolen every day by social media.
Now, let’s do a little math to see the real impact of all that lost time.The average person has a few non-negotiables in their daily schedule that look something like this:
- Sleeping: 7 hours (best practice)
- Bathroom Breaks: 30 minutes (average)
- Eating: 1 hour (average, not including cooking)
- Commuting: 27 minutes (average)
These non-negotiables, which isn’t even a complete or perfect list, leaves just 15 hours left in your day.
Now subtract those 2 hours used on social media and you have 13 hours left.Those hours will easily get filled with:
- Family/Friends
- Work
- Exercise
- Hygiene
- Learning
- Hobbies
- Side-hustles
And all the other things that require your time and attention.So, how much impact could intentionally using 2 hours have?A LOT! When unimportant activities and tasks rule your time, you hand over your very valuable and often most limited resource: time. What if you looked at your time as if it were money? How would your budget look if it was based on your time?
If you were spending your time according to budget, would you still spend those 2 hours on social media knowing they are 2 hours you will never get back? Pursuing your goals, your dreams, and building the life you want requires intention and to do that you must cut out diversion distractions.
Split-Focus Distractions
“Split focus distractions rob you of quality and time.” – T.L. Farris, I’ll Start Tomorrow
Distractions aren’t just things that you do instead of a task like diversion distractions they can also be things that siphon off or split your focus. Split-focus distractions are just as they sound, activities that cut your focus into two or more separate portions. To split means to cut a given amount of something into parts though not necessarily evenly. I can think of no better example for this type of distraction than Netflix.
I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy or Gilmore Girls, hours when I was wasting my time by trying to also work at the same time.
Instead of devoting 100% of my focus to either Netflix or to my work, I was only devoting 60% to Netflix and 40% to the task I was working on. The reality was me trying to reply to emails while watching Gilmore Girls and stopping mid-sentence 15 times per episode to watch what was happening (even though I’d seen it 100 times before).
Even if you feel like or are accomplishing things as you watch Netflix, you are working below your full capability by continually pausing for minor amounts of time to see what’s happening in the show/movie. (Those minor amounts of time add up quickly.)
Your effort is not it’s best because when you engage with split-focus distractions you are trying to focus on two things at once and devoting your full attention and effort to neither.
Discreet Distractions
Discreet distractions are illusions of success. These distractions make you feel like you are accomplishing things, just not the most important tasks. A fully checked-off to-do list is one of the greatest feelings, but checking off the important things, no matter how few, feels even better.
To-Do lists like this:
- Laundry
- Wiping down your desk
- Cleaning out your car
These are tasks that do need to get done but they shouldn’t distract you from the high priority tasks such as writing your blog article, designing your website or filming your course. Chasing your dream and building the life you want should be a higher priority than re-arranging your bookshelves.
Low priority tasks are tasks that need to be completed at some point but aren’t necessarily important right now. High priority tasks are those that get you closer to your goals, and have the highest impact on your life.
Say you want to create a course to help women succeed at living their dream no matter the obstacles that may arise on the journey) your high priority tasks would look something like:
- Research
- Write Script/Notes
- Film
- Create Slides
- Advertise
- ETC.
Now, if you let low priority tasks like; checking your email, updating your website header or brainstorming goals for next year distract you, your high priority tasks will suffer and be pushed back. You will most likely end up behind schedule, missing deadlines, and delaying your dreams.
How to Win the Distraction Battle
To beat these distractions you need to:
- Avoid Diversions: Cut out the focus eaters that unnecessarily rob you.
- Don’t Split: Do not allow your focus to be split by multi-tasking and instead focus on giving 100% of yourself to one task at a time.
- Prioritize: Be intentional with your time and prioritize your highest impact tasks to ensure you don’t engage in discreet distractions.
Finally, as with any endeavor, always start with why you are making this effort in the first place. If you know why you are killing distraction in your life it will make the challenging or hard decisions a little easier.
Are you cutting out diversion distractions because you want to write a book? Are you focusing on single-tasking because you want to build an online course? Are you prioritizing filming reels over reorganizing your garage because you want to help teach women to live a healthy and holistic life?
Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing will give you the staying power needed to conquer distraction in all its forms. Not sure how to define your why? I highly recommend the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek. It is an incredible tool in discovering your motivation.
