Dealing with Work-From-Home Distractions

Hey everybody, hope you're doing great. Paula Rizzo here, and I am psyched to talk to you about how to deal with work-from-home distractions, which I have a work-from-home distraction happening right now. I don't know if you can hear it, but there's construction going on. Of course, of course there is. It used to be that the only thing we had to deal with were chatty coworkers, or, you know, maybe somebody coming into your office here or there. Now there are, you know, leaf blowers and construction, and some people have kids running in and out of their offices. So we have a whole new, whole new look at work and how to work best. And I'm gonna dive into this for you. So thank you to those of you who watched my last video. I appreciate all of the comments and, you know, questions and things that, that you, that you gave to me for that. And today we're gonna talk about dealing with work-from-home distractions. So let's, let's dive in. Let's get into it. I have some some slides to go through and a presentation for you. I will take questions. If you have questions, please make sure that you leave them in the chat boxes below and I will get to them at the end of the presentation for sure. Any questions, comments, thoughts? As many of you know, my name is Paula Rizzo. I have two books about list-making and productivity, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. And this all comes back from my long career as a television producer where you had to be super efficient, make sure to get your stuff done, and lists were the way to be able to do that. And I also have, uh, 2 courses now on LinkedIn Learning. So if you're a LinkedIn Learning, uh, aficionado, you should go there and type in my name, Paula Rizzo, and you'll see 2 courses. So the first course is all about how to maximize your remote office for productivity because it matters, right? Where you're working, how you're working. And then the second one is all about list-making. So I hope you check those out. And for today's presentation, if you go to paularizzo.com/list, I will send you not only the slides and a replay of the video, but also my list-making starter kit so that you can get started on the right track with your list. Because yes, I get it. Everyone can make a list, but it is really about the way that you optimize that list that really makes it work best. So the last time we spoke in my first video, we talked about how to clear cutter— clear cutter— how to clear clutter using your priorities. Now I speak to many types of people, As, as an entrepreneur, I know this to be true. Being able to have one clear-cut priority really helps in so many, so many avenues of not only your business if you're working for somebody else or you're an entrepreneur and you work for yourself. So one of the things that I always suggest is to make a list of your priorities because if it's not front of mind and not right in your face, you forget about it and then other things pop onto your to-do list or you get distracted and you get off off, uh, you know, your, your, your focus, and then it's very hard to come back. So you could do this now. You could just make a list of what are the high-level priorities in your life, for your personal life, for your business. It could be anything— sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation, love, or a specific work project. Is there one project that you're working on right now that's super important to you? So you write that down, you pick one. This is the hardest part. Was to really pick one and say, okay, this is the one I'm going to focus on. And then every decision you make goes through the lens of, is this aligned with my priority? Because now you have your priority set. So you have sort of that touchstone to look at and say, okay, well, you know, maybe going to that networking, you know, cocktail hour, uh, virtually at 9:00 PM is not aligned with what I'm trying to do, which is get more sleep at night. And so you're going to say no. So things like that, that's an oversimplified way of teaching, uh, you to sort of take this and put it into perspective for what it is that you're working on in your own business or your own life. There's always obstacles, right? What are the obstacles? This is, this is a big complaint that people say. Yeah, okay, enough. In a great world, you know, ideal world, terrific, but there are all these obstacles. And the biggest productivity obstacles are, you know, the one that we've already talked about a bit is, is, is how do you clear the clutter? So we've talked about that. Now what about distractions? That's what we're gonna dive into today. And then my next video I'll be talking about procrastination and then also how to stay motivated because that's one of the most important pieces. These obstacles are there, but you can overcome them. And I know because I have done it. I actually love to procrastinate. It's one of my favorite things to do, but I've been able to have a system to, to overcome it and I will teach it to you. Okay, so today we're going to talk about dealing with distractions. When you get distracted and you get thrown off course, it actually takes 23 minutes for you to reset. That is such a long time, right? So you're in your groove, you're working, you get distracted, somebody comes in, something's going on, whatever it is, and then you, you lose that momentum, you lose that, that, you know, force. So difficult. So one of the things I teach is to, to just try not to be distracted in the first place. And I know it's really hard, but one way that will really help you is to make better to-do lists. So that they're very targeted and they're very specific. And that way you have a roadmap for your day. You know how your day is supposed to go, what your intentions are for the day. You make that plan the night before. Now, I did this both when I was a TV producer and now that I'm an entrepreneur working for myself. I sit down every night before I leave my desk and I run through every single thing that you need to do the next day. Everything. Every little thing, and make sure that you have the time and the resources to do those things. So this is not just a, you know, aspirational list like, oh, I wish I could get to doing this, and I wish I could get to— no, no, no. It has to be very specific. You have to know that you have the time and the resources to actually do it. And if you have to, you know, and I do this and I teach this a lot in my courses, is how do you set yourself up for success and look at your schedule and say, okay, here's the things I'm going to do at this time and here's what I'm going to do at that time. And how do you stick to it? That takes a little bit of extra skill. But first, we're just working on the first part here. The first part is to, to only put things on that list you have the time and the resources to do. So I mean the actual physical time that you have to put into doing that task and then the resources. Maybe you're not the person who has to be doing that, but do you have someone you can outsource it to or whatever it is? Do you have that? Very important. OK, so throughout the day you have this, this list, which is great. You have to have your roadmap. I have mine next to me right now. You have it next to you and then you get distracted. It's going to happen, right? Even if we try our hardest to not be distracted and stay on task, you will be distracted. Create what I call a distraction placeholder. And if you go to paularizzo.com/list, I will send you my list-making starter kit, which includes how I set up my to-do list every single day. And it includes a distraction placeholder. So if I get distracted, I notice it before I jump in to go do that other thing or to get distracted. And I write out what I'm in the middle of doing. So if I'm in the middle of writing an email or I'm in the middle of, you know, putting some slides together for a presentation or whatever it is that I'm, that I'm working on, I write it down. I write it down in that distraction placeholder spot on my list. And then when I leave my desk and then when I come back or whatever it is I was doing, I look back at that distraction placeholder and say, oh, OK, I was in the middle of writing that email. So let me get back to that because you know what happens? You sit down and you start doing 5 other things that have happened. 10 other emails have come in. Maybe, you know, you got some text messages. So then you go down the rabbit hole and start dealing with all of that. But you don't really get back to the thing that you were working on to begin with. This is a hack that works so well. And it just is a placeholder that keeps your finger on it so that, you know, OK, And that 23 minutes that it takes to reset is actually reduced much more because you, you gave yourself a little, a little heads up on that. I often hear people say, I would be more productive if I had more time, right? Wouldn't it be nice to have 25 hours in the day? Well, here's the thing. Let's be honest with ourselves. There are 168 hours in the week. Those are a lot of hours. Okay. You're sleeping for, for a lot of them, hopefully. But That is a long amount of time. What we have to do is optimize the time that you do have and make sure that it is really optimized. One way is to tune out. Now, I did this a lot when I worked in a newsroom, and I'm letting you in on all my secrets. I hope my coworkers are not watching because they'll, they'll be like, huh, that's why she did that. But a lot of times when I had to write scripts or I had to get something done on a deadline, I would put headphones on. I would just put them on. As a visual cue to people that I was listening to something or I was working on something or I was in a zone writing my scripts. I wasn't listening to anything. There was nothing in those, in those headphones. It was just a visual cue. So for you, same thing. If you're working from home or wherever you're working, you could say to your family, if I'm wearing these headphones, it means I'm in the middle of doing something. I'm busy, so please don't disturb me when these headphones are on. I'm telling you, it works. So you can try that. Also, if you do need a little bit of, you know, music or, or, you know, productivity boost in your ears, you could, you could use something like Focus@Will. So Focus@Will is a website where you can go and there's all different channels on there that you can be listening to different kinds of music that will keep you focused. And, and, you know, even if it's ambient noise or whatever, you know, to kind of zone out. And also if you have construction or leaf blowers or something else going on around you, it can be maddening. Believe me, I know. And so sometimes to be able to replace that noise with something that will just block it out is really helpful. I also use Calm. I use this every day. It's an app that you can use for meditation, but there are also really, really great music selections in there too, which I use a lot if I feel like, oh, I'm not getting anything done and I'm so distracted and things keep pulling me off track. I will simply, you know, go to their website or go to the app that I have and, and just listen to some of this this music that doesn't have lyrics because for me, if there are lyrics, I'm going to start singing along, I'm going to start dancing, I'm going to— and it just, that defeats the whole purpose of all of this. But those are two really great resources that I really love. And then this is something else that might feel a little nutty, at least at first, but anytime you can remind yourself of what it is that you're doing because our attention span is so short these days. It's better to be able to remind yourself that, "Hey, I'm in the middle of doing something. I cannot be distracted," because it's so easy to be distracted. So I use mantras, and the mantra basically is what it is that I'm working on. So for instance, you repeat it over and over in your head right before you start. Write tomorrow's blog post, write tomorrow's blog post. Okay, I'm going to write tomorrow's blog post. That's what I'm working on right now. You can even write it down, write it on the top of your list or write it wherever it is, stick it on a sticky note of what you're in the middle of doing. So that when you do get distracted, you're like, "Okay, hold on. I'm not going to do that because I'm going to do this. This is the thing that I'm working on right now." I can tell you, it feels kind of crazy, but when you do it enough, you start to train yourself. If you say it out loud too, hopefully there's no one around hearing you, but it actually solidifies it even more because you're using then two parts of your brain. One is you're reading or you're speaking, and the other is that you're hearing. So you hear and you read, and so it just triggers all these wonderful things in your brain, and so you are able to then focus on it even better. It takes these tricks sometimes to get you going, to get you motivated. But another issue you run into is procrastination. You could drown out all of those distractions and not have to worry about it and no big deal and all that. However, procrastination is going to pop up, right? And there are specific reasons why we procrastinate, and there are ways around it that I have found that I will share with you and that will be coming in my next video. And of course, if you go to paularizzo.com/list, I will send you this presentation with the slides and my list making starter kit with that distraction placeholder in it because I know that that's something that you could be doing right away that will really, really help to, you know, boost your brain power and your productivity and all of the above. So I would love to take any questions or comments. If you have any questions, just put them in the chat box. On where you're watching, or comments. You know, if you find that the biggest distractions are actually not the leaf blowers, if you have other distractions that you're like, hey, this is the biggest problem that I've run into, tell me about it. Let me know what it, what it is, and I'm happy to, happy to weigh in on that. But, you know, the idea here is that you want to set yourself up for success because, you know, the odds are against us a little bit when we're working from home. And this is something that I, you know, talked about a bit in the course that I have with LinkedIn on remote working. And, you know, There's so many things that you could be doing, right? You could be doing laundry, you could be doing, uh, watching a show, you could be— and you can use those things throughout your day to be able to, um, you know, reward yourself or give yourself a break so that you're not sitting at your desk constantly. Because that's what I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, you know, we feel like we have to sit at our desk all the time, we feel like we're always working. And people are working much, much more these days, uh, because there's no barrier, right? There's no place to, to shut it down for the day. But I'm going to teach you how to do it. So I hope this was helpful for you. And, you know, if you're watching the replay, can please continue to put questions and comments in there. I'll go in and I'll, I'll make sure to answer those. And, uh, I hope that you found this helpful and that you can drown out some of those distractions. And the next time we see each other, I will be talking all about ways to beat procrastination. All right, see you soon.