Discover Why You Can't Stop Checking Email At Work And The 10-Minute Rule To Hack Productivity

Oh, boy. We need to have a conversation here. You are on YouTube, looking about how to be more productive and staying focused in the workplace. We're not starting really strong here, but don't worry, you're at the right place, because I'll give you some powerful techniques on how to deal with that. My name is Jason Campbell, and I've interviewed so many people when it comes to workplace productivity, high performance habits. And what I'm bringing to you today is really what you can do to be more productive and not be so distracted in the workplace, even when there's a lot of things going on. Now, the first thing that came as well, after I knew it wasn't so much of a surprise. Let me ask you really quickly, since you're here. You're obviously looking for that one technique, like, how do I become more productive? How do I have more focus? Do you know the answer? Let me look at a different industry here. Let's say you wanted to be healthier. Let's say you wanted to lose weight. What would you do? Would you exercise and would you eat better? Seems pretty simple, right? But when it comes to becoming more productive and more focused, it really is just about doing the work, isn't it? And so there's some underlying problem here. And when I interviewed Nir Eyal, he wrote a book called Indistractable. And what I loved is this clip that he mentioned about what is the problem right now about being productive or not being distracted? Productive.

Right. I'm just checking email here for a quick minute. That's productive, right? That feels like work. That feels like something I gotta do anyway. No. If what you plan to do was to work on that big project, to be with a friend, to whatever it might be, if it's not what you plan to do, it is automatically defined as distraction. Even if it feels productive, it's just as pernicious of a distraction.

Well, it's almost like that kind of I'm just gonna be busy syndrome, right? So a lot of people, because that big project's not moving, you're gonna find all these little things to do that don't really move the needle.

That's right.

That's right. That would qualify as distraction in this instance.

Anything that is not what you plan to do with intent. And so this helps us in many ways. It gets rid of this ridiculous moral hierarchy that, oh, you checking Facebook, that's somehow morally inferior to me watching football for three hours. No, whatever you want to do with intent, do it, enjoy it. As long as you're Spending your time the way you want as opposed to how someone else wants you to spend your time. So now we have traction and we have distraction. Now, what prompts us to either traction or distraction? Two things. We have what's called an external trigger. An external trigger are the pings, the dings, the rings. These are kind of the usual suspects that people think about when we get distracted. These are things in our environment that prompt us to either traction or distraction.

So let's use an example. So like, you're supposed to be working on this project we're talking about. You're just getting like a ding on the phone. Then an email comes in. Then you end up looking at this email that's talking about something else. And then you end up, oh, I need to learn more about this. So I'm going to go check on YouTube and then there's a related video and then you end up looking at cat videos for two hours and you're like, oh, damn.

So that would be an example of an external trigger that moves you towards distraction. But they're not all bad. So if you get that notification on your phone and says, hey, now it's time for that meeting. Now it's time to go exercise. Now it's time to go do that thing you plan to do. Well, now it's moving you towards traction.

So the external trigger is neutral, right? You just need to program it towards it.

It's how we use it. And we can talk about what we can do about those. But that actually most people blame just the external triggers and what they don't consider and what turns out to be the number one source of distraction are what we call the internal triggers. And this is where it gets really interesting. An internal trigger is an uncomfortable emotional state that we seek to escape.

So as you notice in the clip, it's not because we lack information that we don't have more productivity or more focus. All this technology is around and it was supposed to make us more productive. Yet we're finding a lot of distractions. So what can we do about it? I know for myself there are times where I really, really lose that productivity and focus. And it usually has to do because I don't really the purpose or impact for what I'm doing. And I'm sorry about the noise happening in the background. It's just a busy office, so I hope you can still pay attention here, Keep focused. It usually has to do with me not having clarity as to why it's important for me to do what I'm doing, have you ever found yourself doing something that's one of your hobbies, one of your like favorite things to do in the world? I'll take for example, I love dirt biking. If I'm dirt biking, I'm not trying to find a way to that I can be more like focused in my dirt bike when I'm enjoying it and I'm in it, I am in it and I am gone. And I don't need to think about that. So usually it's a question that you're not being passionate about what you're doing right now. And so how can you actually get more clarity on this? There are ways to be more focused, usually be more proactive, set some goals first. There's some issues we need to deal with. If you're already on YouTube, that's why I said you might be in trouble, because that's usually the place we find ourselves. Starting with good intentions and then three, 10 videos down, you're watching at the latest funny cat video and you're obviously having distraction. So let's look at our internal state first. When I interviewed Nir, he talked about our internal triggers, the internal dilemmas that come into our mind. This thing that steers us towards distraction. And it's very easy today more than ever to find a way to find a distraction. And so what are those things? Is it you want to go get a coffee because you don't want to get into that job or you're gonna be, you know, on your Instagram or you're gonna be on YouTube. You're always gonna look for something and it's a bit of an addictive, compulsive behavior. The first thing you wanna address is what are the drivers emotionally for that kind of behavior. Because that's typically the root cause of why there's distractions, why there's loss of productivity and why there's loss of focus. And so you're gonna wanna use this technique that was shared that I think is really powerful. And it's just a 10 minute technique. See, if I go and tell you stop going on Facebook, your mind automatically feels that it's lost that freedom. And so if that's the case, you're gonna want to reach out for it even more. And so there's a technique which is the 10 minute technique, which is any time that you feel that you wanna go do something that you know is distracting, you just have to wait 10 minutes, set a 10 minute timer, and then allow yourself to do that thing in 10 minutes time with no consequence whatsoever. You wanted to go on YouTube and go watch a ton of videos to not do the thing you know you need to do. Then at least with the 10 minute rule, you can do it after that. But here's what most likely will happen. You'll be riding the emotional curve. Every time you go towards a distraction, it's usually because there's an uncomfortable sensation within you that you're trying to deal with. And when you wait that 10 minutes, a couple things will happen. After the 10 minutes, you more than likely will just get back into doing your job, doing your task and not thinking about that distraction anymore. And secondly is you'll actually keep in that 10 minutes doing the job and the task, and you'll actually get a little bit more done before you reward yourself with that distraction. Okay. There's a lot of psychology that comes around why we have these things that we're drawn towards, these addictive personalities, these distractions, but it usually has to do with our emotions. So if you don't want to do the task within that 10 minutes, I could even suggest a meditation. I like promoting meditation working here at Mindvalley. So take 10 minutes, close your eyes and think about what's the sensation that's going on when and you're not wanting to go towards that thing. Okay, now let's get into a bit of the nitty gritty on actually being productive and getting that focus. As I mentioned before, if you're not clear on what needs to be done and why it's important, it's very hard to be motivated to do that task. So I know times where I've actually worked until late hours into the night because I was working on a project that was so important. I knew that every extra hour of work that I would do on studying the customer or, or doing the marketing, right, or adding these little elements would allow me to speak to a couple more people that would get a massive transformation from the work that I do. It was very clear on the ultimate impact that I was going to make. And so here at mindvalley we use a system called okrs Objectives and key results. This was made quite famous by John Dewar, who wrote a book about it. And really what it is is that you want to know a clear objective as to what is it that you do and why is it so important. And if the task is causing you to procrastinate, then stop doing the task and take a moment to journal the why. Simon Sinek, the famous author who wrote Start with why, speaks about when you unleash the power of understanding the why, the what, and the how become super clear. And you can go towards it without hesitation. Hesitation is the biggest productivity killer. And so if you're doing a task, let's say you have to fill a spreadsheet, right? And you're looking at it and you're like, I don't know why I have to do this. There's so many number crunching. Take a step back and understand the why. It'll get the numbers right. It'll bring more confidence in the numbers that you see. It'll make my finance team happier. It'll make me be able to operate the business more effectively, which ultimately leads to the mission and the vision of the company. I want you to take moments to see the ultimate trail of impact of you doing that task. And if you spend 10 minutes to just get clear on the why, you'll see that then you can take a deep breath and be like, okay, is this important? And here's the thing, it might not be important. And so when you do the why, you might actually start looking at what is the ultimate task you should be doing. I want to bring you another reference that's really important. Gary Keller wrote a book called the One Thing. It's the ultimate law of getting anything done. He says everything has to do with the one thing. You can only do one thing at a time. Multitasking isn't real. When you multitask, you basically just switch to doing one thing in very quick iterations, which makes you super unproductive. But here's another thing that happens when you apply a one thing rule is if you extend it in time, you can actually start with one big thing that starts chunking it down into smaller one things. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're trying to get a product out in the market. Well, your one thing is to get that product out, okay? Now, if you do that within a year's time, you can break it down. What do I need to do this quarter? What is the one thing that needs to be done? So I'm going to be closer to launching my product in one year. And then from there, you can break it down to the month, then you can break it down to the week. And here's a ritual I would encourage you to take on is if every Sunday or Monday morning, you just focus on determining what is the one thing this week that's going to move the needle for everything else. For the objective that I've set for the longer term, you'll see that you'll actually focus on that thing, you'll be motivated to do it because you'll understand the ultimate impact. And sometimes that one thing you need to do today to get that one week thing done is gonna be that dragon you need to slay. Brian Tracy wrote a book called Eat the Frog. And Eat the frog basically means when you go out and you do the task, which is eating the frog, nobody enjoys eating the frog. But if you do that first, first thing in the morning, you know it is the ultimate task that's gonna move the needle and you do that first and the rest of the day you're going to feel great, you're going to have a win, and you're going to be able to accomplish so much more in the process. Okay, now I want to talk more about these things that could cause you distractions. We have our phones, we have our messages, and God forbid we have those emails. Did you know that emails aren't necessarily the most productive use of your time? They'll always keep coming. They're not always important yet. They can drain your entire day where you finish the day and be like, wow, what did I do? You just looked at emails. I highly recommend that you schedule a time block to handle emails. There's so many other little tips and tricks on how to be more productive, how to be more focused, but I want you to keep remembering these two big things we talked about. The why the task needs to be done is going to be the fuel to get it done. And the distractions that you keep veering for usually come from an internal emotion that you want to deal with. So give yourself that 10 minutes so you can jump right back into it and get that task done. I hope this was helpful for you. I want to know what are the typical distractions or things that take away your focus in the workplace. Leave a comment below and if you like this video, definitely give me the thumbs up and subscribe so I can bring you more of these contents. As we continue bringing these ideas that you can apply directly and immediately in the workplace. This is Jason Campbell and until next time.

Sam.