In this episode, we discuss how being distracted is the easiest thing we can as a person, and how harmful this can be.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons that you can reflect on in your journal so you can grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and have a better career, better relationships, and better personal finances while you enjoy your morning cup of coffee.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
At the end of today’s podcast episode, I’m going to give you a prompt question to reflect on in your journal. The idea is to take one to five minutes to reflect on today’s lesson and write a minimum of one paragraph on how you can apply the lesson in your life life. You can use an actual journal, a word document like on Google Drive, or your note-taking app like Evernote. The idea is that you’re actually thinking about how to process the information to help you improve your life.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the easiest thing to do as a human being is go get distracted. The average attention span for a human is about five seconds and the average person touches there phone every 12 minutes. There have always been distractions but in today’s attention economy, we have more people vying for our attention more than ever. Every podcast, television, commercial, ad, and person, wants your attention. You just have to have boundaries and give your attention to the things that are really important.
I know for myself, on podcasts, I skip a lot of the ads because they really don’t fit me, like the mortgage ones. Plus when I do this, it’s giving me an opportunity not to get distracted. I only have so much valuable brain glucose to make a decision and I can’t be spending that brain glucose on the wrong things. Then I won’t have enough left over to spend time on the things that actually matter.
Every time you have to practice will power, your brain uses up a little bit of brain glucose. So it’s a diminishing resource that thankfully gets replenished the next day. There is an interesting study where they left people in a waiting room with radishes and cookies, one group could only have the radishes and practice self-control, and the other group could eat the cookies as they please. Then afterward, the two groups were given a hard test, and they found that people who had to exercise will power first, did worst on then the folks who didn’t have to exercise will power. They stuck with the problems longer and were more creative.
So if you have to use will power to not get distracted, then you’re already going to lose. The best thing is to not have the distractions there in the first place so that you build up the habit and to focus on what is most important things to work on.
It’s also important that you don’t have a lot of interruptions. There is something called mental residue where when you switch tasks, you’re still thinking about the previous task. So you’re really not giving 100 percent on the task your working on, which is going to take you longer to work on. I know it can take me either an hour and 15 minutes to write one episode if I allow distractions of it could take me 35 minutes if I don’t. Thirty minutes is a lot of time to get something done. It’s really best to just batch your tasks and learn how to say no to the distractions.
I usually just say that I’m sorry but I’m currently working on something, I can get back to you tomorrow. If’s it’s important then the person can wait. I can’t just spend my day being pulled into 10 different directions.
Being distracted can also be something that people welcome. I know there have been times where one of my old co-workers would come into my office and ask if they want to eat. I would then say yes. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s bad, you just have to know your schedule and what you need to accomplish.
To help you not get distracted as a person, I would highly recommend you read two books by Cal Newport. The first is Deep Work and the other is Digital Minimalism. Cal Newport gets a lot of work done as a professor at Georgetown and business owner and he accredits his success to not getting distracted. If you want to get really important work done, you have to know how not to get distracted. When you’re studying for that exam, it requires your full attention. If you want to go to the gym to work out, then you have to not get distracted by your bed, your phone, and other things. If you want to write a book, then you have to not get distracted by your thoughts.
Once you can master the feeling of not getting distracted, then this is when you become a master and start doing important work. This will lead to a more fulfilling life with fewer regrets. I know that I try my best to focus on what is important for the past four years and I’m proud of all the work that I did. The same can happen to you.
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, the easiest thing to do as a human being is get distracted. The first way to overcome distractions is to set up your environment on how not to get distracted. This might require you to put your phone, someone, out of sight. It might require you to set up boundaries for family members or co-workers. Then from there, you build up the habit. If you want to start doing great work, then you can’t be distracted by the unimportant stuff and sometimes that distraction will come from your own internal dialogue.
So in your journal, ask yourself, how can I have fewer distractions in my life? Am I working on something that deserves my full attention? Remember that if you want to do something great, you have to do the boring work first and requires you do get through this. If you also distracted a lot, maybe you’re just working on the wrong thing and should more on. This will require you to know yourself and to build up your habits. You have one life to live, so make sure you’re not getting distracted into doing something you don’t want to do.
Thanks for listening today! To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
*Music outro
