In this bullet‑journal‑focused video, Matt Ragland explains a simple analog method for reducing mental distractions and improving focus. He describes how everyday interruptions—ranging from a child’s antics to random internet rabbit‑holes—pull attention away from meaningful work and relationships. To counter this, Matt began logging every distracting thought or impulse in a notebook, treating the act as a form of "awake meditation." By writing down each distraction, he observed a drop in the number of daily interruptions (from roughly 20‑25 down to 10‑15) and felt more empowered to say no to irrelevant mental wanderings. He frames the practice as a way to recognize, acknowledge, and release distractions without judgment, thereby reclaiming mental energy for projects, people, and purpose. Matt encourages viewers to try the technique for a few days, share their experiences in the comments, and follow his broader productivity content on YouTube and Instagram, which often centers on analog tools like bullet journals, timers, and planners.
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Hi everyone, my name is Matt, and welcome to another Bullet Journal Productivity video. In this video, I'm going to be talking to you about— I wonder why— why are the gutters so full? What is that? Distractions! Distractions, my friends, and anything that— these shelves really need to be picked up. That can happen. That can happen. It happens to all of us every single day. We're doing our work, we're spending time with the people closest to us, our thoughts get pulled away, sometimes very actively by advertisements or by people. Like, my 4-year-old runs in here several times a day and distracts me, which is fine. He is wonderful. But I'm talking more about the kind of distractions where you know you're working on a project that matters, you know you're with people that you need to be present with, but your mind starts to drift. You start to get a little bored. You're like, I wonder what's happening. On social, or like something I talked about in my recent Craft and Commerce talk was that I think way too much about like college football recruiting. And that is kind of strange that I care so much about like what 18-year-old football players are going to choose for college. Fighting distraction and focusing my attention on the people, projects and purpose that matter the most to me has been a huge theme for me this year. And so a few weeks ago I started to do something else that was a little odd, and I started to keep a list of all of the things that were distracting me. I watched the Charlie's Angels trailer, lots of time on NBA free agent rumors, Paul Rudd is going to be in the new Ghostbusters, that's neat. Like this doesn't— I mean like it's kind of interesting, but it doesn't, it doesn't like fulfill or like help my life at all. And so those are the ones that you see that really stand out. And I shared a post about this on Instagram. And I knew I had to make a video about it because it resonated with so many of you. And I was like, I'm scrapping whatever the project was for this week, and I'm making a video. What I found is when I started writing these things down, I got really like bummed out. I found that the more that I like wrote them down, and kind of had a little chuckle with myself about it. Then the next time, say I wanted to watch a different trailer, I was like, you know, I got distracted by Charlie's Angels trailer last time and I'm not going to do it. Just recognizing that there was a distraction and that kind of like took the power away from it. And I think that's really useful. Instead of being like super like depressed and frustrated and stressed out about like, gosh, why can't I get my head right? Just acknowledging it and saying, Yeah, that was the thing I was distracted by. I'm going to write it down. And that takes some of the power away from the distraction in the future. And I definitely found that to be the case for me because after a few days of doing this, I found that my distractions were going down from like, say, 20, 25 a day down to like 15 to 20. And now I'm kind of in that 10-ish, 10 to 15-ish range. Some days are more, some days are less. It's almost like a form of like awake meditation. I'm like, you know, there's just recognizing that thing that has come into my mind and be like, hey, what's up? No time for you right now. I have to work on this thing that matters to me. I have to work on this project. I have to— I need to spend time with this person that matters to me. I need to be present with them. And so I really encourage you to do this yourself over the next few days. I believe that if you do this, you'll find yourself maybe not initially getting distracted less, but feeling more powerful yourself in saying no to distracting thoughts that come into your mind. That's the key. That's where I'm working in right now, just being like, there's that thing. I'm just going to let it go by like ships going through down past the river. And I'm just like saying, hey, what's up? I'm working on something else. I'm with someone else. That is like the next step. That's what I'm excited about. That's what I want to encourage you towards. I don't know if we'll ever get rid of distracting thoughts like that. I don't know. That's going to take a long time. That's a lifelong goal.. But just being able to recognize and be like, yeah, I see you, I see you, but it's not, it's not what I'm doing right now. This thing that you want to distract me with is not what I'm going to be doing right now. So keep a, keep a record of that. Let me know in the comments what you think about this practice, about how often you might get distracted by different things that try and pull your attention away from the people, projects, and purpose that matter the most to you. Thanks so much for watching this video. If this is your first time here, give it a thumbs up if you like it, subscribe if you're new. And we talk all about productivity and mindfulness, usually with an analog tool like a bullet journal, notebook, timers, lots of different cool things that we get into. So really happy you're here and look forward to seeing you in the next video. Talk to you soon. Bye. Thanks again for watching the video. If you're not following me on Instagram yet, I would love to say hey to you there. Send me a DM. We also do live chats, Q&As, really off-the-cuff casual conversation about planning, productivity, and Bullet Journaling. Hope to see you there. Thanks again for watching this, everyone. Bye.
