Previously written Jan 18, 2015
On to Day 4 challenge of Natalie Sisson’s 15-Day Blog Challenge…I have heard this before, that our bodies are tuned into, really geared, to be distracted – I believe it has something to do with our ‘old’ brain (the amigdula?), the part that deals with life and death situations, survival. We are made to sense things that are pulling us from our focus, to avoid unexpected dangers.
I’ve also been impacted by how long it takes to get that focus back once distracted. Natalie mentioned it takes 15 minutes to get back on track after every distraction, and I would almost argue that it is even longer, especially when it comes to social media – once you get sucked into one thing, it can lead to hours of wasted time. This is my weak area, especially since I am not working right now, and am starting my own business but have yet to secure any contracts!
I have to say that LinkedIn is where I ‘live’ currently, and I have been trying to increase being noticed through liking and making comments on others’ posts, posting interesting articles I’ve read, and snooping people’s profiles (NOT anonymously which drives me crazy on my own profile!) with an occasional invite to connect. Unfortunately all this takes time, and I feel I need to schedule this in rather than randomly look at things.
In regard to FB, I only used to periodically check that, as I only use it for personal/family posts and keeping up with some relatives’ activities. Most of my email notifications have been shut off forever. Of course, with this blog challenge, I now have a whole new slew of email updates pouring in every hour of the day it seems. I may need to alter that somehow…hmmm.
My other problem area is that over the past year, I have signed up to various webinars, tele-summits and podcasts on branding, leadership, entrepreneurship, online presence, etc…all of which had tremendous benefits and lots of free learning and interesting perspectives from some well known people. I love it all and have obtained some great resources from this – the issue is that in signing up for any sort of free stuff, I now receive a lot of e-newsletters, offers of training programs, coaching and other such things. I have been slowly unsubscribing to the ones that I really have not taken a liking of, which has helped, but it can still be a bit overwhelming having to weed through my inbox to sort what I want or have to read or not.
So the answer to the challenge – they thing for me to stop doing to make myself more productive, and give myself more time, is of course, opening those emails associated with e-newsletters, and LinkedIn or Facebook posts! This would also mean not actually opening LinkedIn or Facebook in any way, except for scheduled periods of time, AFTER all my MIAs are complete. I realized this before the blog challenge started – it was just reinforced once I started getting sucked into reading everyone’s blogs!
Efficiency in Nature 