Yes, so I will admit it. I'm one of those folks that get very easily unfocused. My entire first four years was useless but only spending around my time and effort from one famous idea to another, always training myself on something a whole new thing, but left everything undone and never making any great change on the results.
After so many times spent and wasted and the so many situations where I pissed off at myself, I eventually forced myself to look for something, anything that got me to focus on and finish it before proceeding to another thing else.
That is when I complete reading a little book entitled "Getting Things Done". The said book is not the point of this article, but rather a great idea that I learned from it that changed my perspective about my working habit forever.
The great idea is the following: Every open loop inside your mind builds up a brain-suck that depletes your energy and your creativity.
What does it signifies? It signifies that every idea that you've met and doesn't been dealt with accordingly, will remain in your mind, and your mind will pop up a thought to remind you about that idea at every unexpected possible time so it won't let it be disregarded. These steady small reminders are never ending waste of mental energy that always give you hassle of what really matters to you for the moment.
This is the reason that even when you commit to yourself that this very time is going to be totally different and you won't ever get distracted, you immediately remember another idea, and you decide to put it aside for later use, but you failed to do so, instead it keeps popping up in your mind over and over again until it creates a loud voice in your mind that you must act on it and swayed to forget about the recent idea. This used to occur to me every single day.
How do you manage with this? The answer is quite simple. You manage to record the idea pops up in your mind, file it away and trust on yourself to get back to it later. In this manner you subconsciously tell your mind that nothing to worry about because the idea is properly recorded for immediate use. Once this happens your subconscious mind will close the open loop and free up your mind space and redirect your mental energy for you to continue and make it done whatever you've started.
So, this is what you should do: You create yourself a subconscious inbox.
You secure an old shoebox, a number of 3x5 index cards, and a pencil, and put it right beside your computer. You start to work on your task of the day, that you've planned a day before. And, whenever your mind pops up an interesting thought, idea , or anything that is not closely related to your task at hand, you give yourself a few seconds to write it down on a piece of index card, put it inside the shoebox, forget about it, and quickly continue working. This tells the subconscious mind that you value the ideas and it will be put into consideration in sometime later, but not now.
At the end of the day, after finishing the task at hand, you give time to get the ideas inside the shoebox. Read it, consider it, and decide to put it away or make an actionable step to work on it. Put the actionable step on a list and categorized them either as soon as possible, later, or some day. Then, you put the index card into a trash can, and repeat the process until the shoebox is totally empty every single day.
If you tend to manage this simple trick every single day, then your subconscious mind will start to trust on you. It won't hinder again of what you're working at the moment and give you focus and surely your productivity will skyrocket beyond your expectation. You're mind have a free of distractions and serene, prepare to deal with an idea at a time.
Don't force yourself to believe me! Just try it, because I've been experiencing good results for this trick, for almost 3 years. I'm hoping this would somehow help you out there that have restless minds like mine before, to control them a little bit in the process.
After so many times spent and wasted and the so many situations where I pissed off at myself, I eventually forced myself to look for something, anything that got me to focus on and finish it before proceeding to another thing else.
That is when I complete reading a little book entitled "Getting Things Done". The said book is not the point of this article, but rather a great idea that I learned from it that changed my perspective about my working habit forever.
The great idea is the following: Every open loop inside your mind builds up a brain-suck that depletes your energy and your creativity.
What does it signifies? It signifies that every idea that you've met and doesn't been dealt with accordingly, will remain in your mind, and your mind will pop up a thought to remind you about that idea at every unexpected possible time so it won't let it be disregarded. These steady small reminders are never ending waste of mental energy that always give you hassle of what really matters to you for the moment.
This is the reason that even when you commit to yourself that this very time is going to be totally different and you won't ever get distracted, you immediately remember another idea, and you decide to put it aside for later use, but you failed to do so, instead it keeps popping up in your mind over and over again until it creates a loud voice in your mind that you must act on it and swayed to forget about the recent idea. This used to occur to me every single day.
How do you manage with this? The answer is quite simple. You manage to record the idea pops up in your mind, file it away and trust on yourself to get back to it later. In this manner you subconsciously tell your mind that nothing to worry about because the idea is properly recorded for immediate use. Once this happens your subconscious mind will close the open loop and free up your mind space and redirect your mental energy for you to continue and make it done whatever you've started.
So, this is what you should do: You create yourself a subconscious inbox.
You secure an old shoebox, a number of 3x5 index cards, and a pencil, and put it right beside your computer. You start to work on your task of the day, that you've planned a day before. And, whenever your mind pops up an interesting thought, idea , or anything that is not closely related to your task at hand, you give yourself a few seconds to write it down on a piece of index card, put it inside the shoebox, forget about it, and quickly continue working. This tells the subconscious mind that you value the ideas and it will be put into consideration in sometime later, but not now.
At the end of the day, after finishing the task at hand, you give time to get the ideas inside the shoebox. Read it, consider it, and decide to put it away or make an actionable step to work on it. Put the actionable step on a list and categorized them either as soon as possible, later, or some day. Then, you put the index card into a trash can, and repeat the process until the shoebox is totally empty every single day.
If you tend to manage this simple trick every single day, then your subconscious mind will start to trust on you. It won't hinder again of what you're working at the moment and give you focus and surely your productivity will skyrocket beyond your expectation. You're mind have a free of distractions and serene, prepare to deal with an idea at a time.
Don't force yourself to believe me! Just try it, because I've been experiencing good results for this trick, for almost 3 years. I'm hoping this would somehow help you out there that have restless minds like mine before, to control them a little bit in the process.