Do you get distracted easily?

#focus #hotostopprocastination #procastination #productivity Sep 28, 2020

So do you find that you procrastinate a lot, that you get distracted very easily?


You're in the middle of doing something really important and then you hear that buzz on your phone for a WhatsApp or a Facebook or a Twitter or a news alert. You're at home and you're playing with your kids and you hear your phone buzz and immediately you wanna go and check it.


Does that happen to you? It certainly happens to me.


Well, here's a tip that I found from Nir Eyal's book called "Indistractable," great book, I would recommend you to read it if you haven't read it already. And it's called the 10-minute rule.


The 10-minute rule is, is that the moment you get the urge to be distracted by something, like that bleep on your phone, the urge to go away and perhaps turn on the TV to see what's happening on the news or to go and watch Netflix, or perhaps to go on to watch video games, then perhaps you want to get the stuff done that you want to do, then exercise restraint for 10 minutes. Tell yourself that you will succumb to that desire, that temptation, in 10 minutes.


Because what happens in our brains is that these urges to do things come and go. And the urge that you've got right now to go away and be distracted will ebb and flow. And the idea is that you surf that wave. So the emotion will be really strong, and by telling yourself that you'll do it in 10 minutes, you're not telling yourself you're not gonna do it at all. And research has found that when you do that, actually you end up caving in and it's a bad experience overall and it impacts your own belief in yourself, your own kinda self-discipline. Whereas you'll find that if you exercise the 10-minute rule, 9 times out of 10, you'll continue doing what you were doing after that 10 minute is up. And it's a way of practicing that delayed gratification, of not giving it immediately, you're not succumbing to those distractions, those temptations, but surfing the wave, surfing the wave of emotion. And if you do, then that's not a problem at all, but you'll find that 9 times out of 10, you won't.

Have you tried this 10-minute rule? I would recommend it to anyone who wants to start combating their procrastination.