How To Deal With Distractions While Studying (Or At Work)
If you want to use your time effectively, it is vital to understand how to deal with distractions while studying or working. Focus is important for you to accomplish a certain number of goals within the planned time.
How to Cope With Distractions While Studying (Or At Work)
Both external and internal factors play a major role in terms of distraction.
For example, it could be as easy as where you decide to work or study. If you decide to study in a garden, you are bound to be distracted by how much is going on in the garden. Let’s look at the factors in detail.
External factors
As the name suggests, the causative factors for these distractions are based on the external environment you choose to work in. These factors are common to students in addition to those at work.
Noise:
Most of us are unable to focus on work or studies if the place we choose to work is noisy.
At this point, you have two choices. If you have the freedom to sit down and study elsewhere, find a quiet place, preferably in the library.
On the other hand, if you have noisy colleagues and you do not have the luxury of moving your workstation to a quiet spot in your office, buy an MP3 player and listen to some quiet, relaxing music to drown out external noise.
Peer Pressure:
If you’re a student, you’ll often have at least two friends in your gang who aren’t interested in studying.
They will insist on spending time on leisure activities and taunt you until you conform to spend time with them rather than studying.
Learn not to give in to that kind of peer pressure. If you have a clear schedule to follow, do not walk away from it unless absolutely necessary.
Peers and other people can even come into play and influence your time management skills.
For example, co-workers, particularly those who are less busy than you, can be a big source of distraction. That said, to be an effective time manager, you do not have to resign from your job; all you need is to take the required steps to avoid this distraction from unemployed co-workers.
How to Avoid Interruptions
Here’s how to avoid peer pressure (and how to avoid peer pressure)
To Avoid A Casual Stopover From Your Coworkers, Keep Your Doors Close
If necessary, put a don’t disturb sign on your door, and let people know that you’re not to be disturbed (unless there’s an emergency) while your office door is closed.
Talk It
If someone at your work often bothers you for unimportant things, talk to that person about the matter. You may be surprised to learn that the person does not even realize that they’re bothering you.
Use Earphones or Headphones
If you work in an open office or cubicle environment, you are less likely to notice distractions when you put your headphones on, even if you are not listening to music.
Visual impairment:
Most of the time, most of us would rather spend our time staring at the posters on our walls and daydreaming when we should be putting the time to good use.
Remove such visual distractions and place them where you cannot see them. This will make sure that your attention is not divided.
Let us highlight some common visually distracting objects that you may not consider a risk to effective time management:
Common Visual Distractions and How to Avoid Them
Internet
Despite being an amazing tool for communication and access to information, the internet can derail your productivity. Surfing the internet can take up lots of time.
In fact, if you are not careful, when looking for one thing on the internet, a minute can easily turn into thirty minutes or more.
So is there a way to be sure you do not spend all of your mornings on the internet doing nothing productive?
How to Avoid
To avoid internet-based interference:
Take a break to surf the internet (1). A small break after intense work can be useful for relaxing your mind as it gives you an opportunity to renew your energy.
Close your internet browser when you’re not using it. However, some internet platforms like Twitter can be great news sources for your industry. Therefore, it is quite useful to check such platforms at certain times of the day.
Read the news before you start your day: read the newspaper or visit news websites before work to avoid distractions during the day. Make sure you allocate specific time for this so you do not get distracted easily.
Use software applications such as anti-social or freedom to minimise online distractions. With this, you can specify the websites you want to block and for how long.
Block all annoying websites and apps: This happens to nearly everybody. Let’s assume an e-mail notification arrives and you are tempted to check it.
In the process, you will probably even be tempted to make a fast stop on Twitter or other social media sites and before you know it, 30 minutes have passed.
There are applications and software that restrict visiting certain websites at certain times, use these to get rid of web distractions.
Short message
While instant messaging can be useful, many times co-workers can use it as a way to distract you without even getting up from their work space.
If you must use instant messaging, take advantage of it for small, fast requests.
However, if you are still bothered, consider scheduling a particular time to be online during the day. When you do not want instant messaging contact, set your status to “busy” or leave it.
Phones, And Phone Calls
Having a high-end smartphone can lead to an addiction to playing games or browsing the internet, which in turn wastes precious time.
Plus, frequent phone calls from friends calling to wish you a nice day can waste your time.
Just because the phone is ringing doesn’t suggest you must answer it particularly when you are concentrating on something important.
If possible, turn off your phone during your most productive work hours to minimise distractions. You can even let your team know that you will not receive non-essential calls during certain times of the day.
Just like phone calls and instant messaging chats, frequent emails from subscription services or advertisers can make your schedule convoluted. You need to manage the amount and timing of emails received by following these steps:
How to Minimize Email Interruptions
Check your e-mail only at certain times: Find the best time to check your e-mail, and make it as frequent as possible depending on the nature of your job.
If you depend on e-mail for your business, you may want to check it regularly, maybe about 3 times a day.
Turn off audible e-mail alerts: Alerts every time someone sends you an e-mail can be time-consuming because your first instinct is to check the contents of the e-mail.
This allows other people to control your time. The only time you should check your e-mail is when you feel snug or need to.
Communicate ahead of time: In most cases, most of the queries you regularly receive in the mail are likely to be about the same issue.
If you have already got this information available to people in FAQs on your intranet or website, you can significantly reduce the queries you receive regularly by communicating the existence of this file in advance.
Don’t e-mail directly: Avoid having to reply to emails directly unless otherwise stated; doing so can cause distraction and waste your time.
Redirect any discussion that can be handled without arguing via e-mail. This will offer you a fair amount of control over each query and the amount of time you give it. If e-mail is not enough, use the phone.
If not, you can ask a close confidant or employee to take care of some of these letters.
Physical chaos
Did you know that physical clutter can distract you from work and alter your overall outlook on life?
As far-fetched as it sounds, clutter can overwhelm you, and finally interfere with your effective time management skills.
For example, working from an office or a disorganized desk can be distracting (2). When your work life or work space is in a disorganized state, you regularly find it difficult to think and plan effectively; hence, the importance of having an organized desk or home.
However, dealing with clutter can sometimes seem to be an amazing task, particularly if you do not know where to start.
However, if you devote a little time to tidying up your life, you’ll find it enjoyable to live in a relaxed environment, have a more orderly and peaceful existence, and become a better time manager.
Start tidying up your life, your home, and your work through the easy, step-by-step process outlined below.
Thank you for reading this article on how to deal with distractions at work and I actually hope you take action on my suggestions.
I wish you good luck and that I hope that its content has been a good help to you.
