As I was sitting down writing yesterdays post my cat sunny jumped in my lap and refused to leave me alone until he got some attention. He was given a few quick pets and then politely shown the door since I was on a schedule yesterday but it got me thinking. How do we deal with the distractions that creep up in our daily lives?
There are relay only two different kinds of distractions: the ones we expect and the ones that come out of know where. The ones we expect are easy to deal with we make time for them or we develop statageys to avoid them all together. TV shows, video games, and emails are just some examples of these distractions.
But what about the unexpected distraction, the cat in the lap, the phone ringing while you are working, seeing something wired out of the corner of your eye while taking to some one. How do you deal with these distractions and not let them interfere with our progress? It is actually a trick question: we don't deal with them we need to think in terms of recovering from them.
The moment something becomes a distraction to us it has already had it's impact. What is important is how quickly you are able to refocus yourself on the task at hand.
The same is true when we look at the things that distract us from our personal growth. For example I have been working to limit the number of online games I play. These are a huge time wast for me and in a way a defense mechanism for not dealing with the things that need to be dealt with. While this has been going well for me lately every once in a while a good game will pop up and I will put more time in to playing it then I really should. When I catch this happening I set a time of day were I am aloud to play the game and then try to refocus on the work I am doing. This works as long as I am aware of the distraction and act quickly to recover from it.
Distractions are going to happen to us every day, when we expect them and when we don't. We need to focus on how we recover from the distraction rather then the distraction itself. When you are faced with distractions what strategies do you employ for getting back on track?
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2 comments:
Ah, Quinn, you know you've captured me when you put up a picture of a cat. Is that Sunny? I like what you say about recovering from distractions. That seems to be a lesson I'm learning. And some things that I think are distractions are not. Things like a purring cat, a phone conversation with my husband, a beautiful song on the radio - I want to stop for a few moments and relish those because they are meaningful to me. That makes it easier to get back on track. But a lot of the other stuff, like games or internet surfing, yeah, those are a huge time suck. And there's an addictive quality to them. So sometimes I can get back on track by asking myself, "what do I truly need right now?" Usually it's not the distraction I truly need.
Hi patty yes indeed that is Sunny. I totally agree with you about not all distractions being negative, sometimes they are even opportunities. Knowing when a distraction is truly the gateway to a perfect moment is the hard part.
"what do I need right now?" is a powerful tool and one i will be thinking about in the days ahead, thank you for sharing it with me.
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