Staying On Task

There’s an eagle that lives in our yard. Every day, I see this bird sitting on a branch surveying our yard and the ones neighboring us. He’s not in the nest – that’s up higher in another tree. He’s sitting quite still just waiting. Nothing moves his from his task – the wind doesn’t distract him, rain doesn’t seem to deter him. He’s focused on one thing – his next meal. Compare that with your day.
I don’t know about you, but my day is a series of distractions or, on a good day, potential distractions. The telephone rings and there’s fifteen or twenty minutes shot. The email comes in to 4 different accounts (I try to keep the business and personal stuff in different places). Occasionally the fax machine delivers something. I’m not complaining about being busy, but the single hardest thing I have to do all day is stay on task. When I start a project for a client, avoiding the myriad distractions is really hard. Another client sends a note and my plan to spend an uninterrupted hour focused on a report is blown up.

I know the tricks – make to-do lists, divide the day into blocks of time and only do one thing during each block, give yourself little rewards for completing a task on your list – but MAN it’s hard.  We live in a world that’s nothing but distractions – email, Twitter, social media, newsletters, yikes!  And increasingly, people on the sending end don’t want to wait for responses.  15 minutes goes by and you’ve been working on something else instead of replying – oh boy.

I wrote a post 18 months ago about too much noise.  That’s related to this issue but I think we’re all being trained to have ADD. It’s hard to focus for more than a few minutes although I’ve managed to write this in one sitting (another task off the list!).

How do you stay on task?  Any tips or tricks you’d like to share?  The eagle isn’t talking!