After working on my procrastination, mindfulness, and productivity habits for the last nine years, I’ve gotten much better at doing and accomplishing.
And yet … I still have things that get in the way of my doing. Some of them I’m OK with, but nonetheless, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned about the things that get in our way.
Doing Obstacles, and Some Solutions
This list isn’t complete, but just some ideas to get you thinking:
Online distractions
This is a big one for me. I can go to my favourite online sites (just a quick check) and get lost for an hour or two. Or more if I hit on something that really fascinates me. What has worked for me: To overcome this, I try to remember to pause … and often get up and walk around, and realize that I’ve gotten lost again. Then I’ll clear my screen and just have one thing in front of me, and try to stick with that until I’m done. I don’t always succeed, but when I remember to do this, it works very well.
Being overwhelmed
If you have a crap-ton of things to do … it can make you feel helpless. How can you possibly get it all done? So you don’t even start. You can’t get it all done … at least, not right now. What has worked for me: Right now, you can do one thing. So when I’m overwhelmed, again, I’ll clear everything, and make a list of one to three things I need to do most right now. Yes, sometimes the list is just one thing because that helps me focus and not feel overwhelmed.
Email is piled up
When my email inbox has a lot of messages piled up, it can feel overwhelming. What has worked for me: I use Google Inbox or Mailbox and just snooze a bunch of things I don’t need to worry about right now. Then I’ll deal with as many of the others as possible, and leave some to deal with later. Instead, I close my email and get to work on a more important task.
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