John Assaraf describes a morning derailed by instant messages, voicemail, and Skype alerts. Each interruption costs about 15 minutes of focus. He recommends identifying 2-3 distractions to cut and 2-3 high-value tasks to prioritize instead.
Hey everyone, this is John Assraf, and I hope you're having a great day. Another video blog for you based on something that occurred this morning with me. And what occurred with me this morning is as I was trying to get some work done early this morning, my instant messenger wouldn't stop. My voicemail wouldn't stop. My cell phone kept ringing and buzzing from Skype. Every single one of my little tools that I use that I think enhance my life, people were bugging the living daylights out of me. And guess what I was doing? I was answering every single one of the little disturbances and distractions. I finally turned off all of those little distractions, all of those little things that get in the way of being highly productive. And I asked myself a question first. I took a couple deep breaths. I went just to get centered again because I was getting really frustrated. But I asked myself, what could I be doing right now that if I invest just one hour or an hour and a half doing it, I'll be able to complete it? And you know what I did? I cleaned up my entire office because I didn't get a chance to do it in the last few days. And so here's the lesson for today. What distractions are you letting get in your way? What things are you allowing to happen every single day? Answering too many emails, answering the phone when it rings instead of realizing the phone is for your benefit, not for somebody who's calling? Or could you be doing something differently where you stop letting these small interactions get in your way? They say that every time we're interrupted, we've lost about 15 minutes of our ability to stay focused and on task. And I can share with you with all the brain research I've done, it's the frontal lobe of the brain that we want to have focused. It's the orchestra leader that really yields the results that we are capable of achieving. And so your lesson for the day is, what are two or three distractions that you can stop from happening? And what are two or three things that you can focus on that are going to yield some great results for you? I hope you enjoyed this little video blog. Let your friends know about John Assraf and the Having it all program. Thanks.
Millions of individuals around the world are grappling with various mental & emotional health issues
