Distraction is deadly. Though, getting distracted now is more common than ever before. Furthermore, the demand for focus is greater now than ever before. So, how can you regain focus in a distracting world? This is a simple trick I use to stop distraction and focus on what I should be doing instead.

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Last night I posted a story on my Instagram explaining how I’ve discovered some magical solution to getting distracted. Let’s face it, we all get distracted and have our attention taken away from what we should be doing. Right now, in this century, the most important characteristic to have is focus.

It’s what employers are looking for, so it’ll make you more hireable, it’s what allows you to get more work done and get better grades, it’s what allows you to have clarity and comfort within your own life to get more done and achieve great things. Focus.

What’s this trick that I discovered last night that removes distractions?

Let me explain.

I remember in the midst of my studio 6 project thinking “right! I’ve got 8 days to go and have 6 weeks of work to catch up on. I’m going to leave my phone in another room, I’m closing all other programs and I’m not going to get distracted. But first… I should clean my desk. But first, I should check my university emails. I should take the trash out. I should have something to eat.” Yaddi yaddi yadda.

Even when we know we have to work without distraction – we sometimes just can’t pull ourselves to it.

What I did was this…

I said no – I’m not going to clean my desk. That’s the first step – to say no to the distraction. It’s very much a habit you need to develop over time from doing it more and more. Say no and your willpower will get stronger.

That’s something worth noting too – you need to know what you’re actually getting distracted from. We might know that we need to do our studio 6 project. But, what does that actually involve? It might be worth initially investing 5 minutes of your time to figure that out and create a plan for yourself before getting stuck into it. It’s like the analogy I often use where we tend to do busy work instead of what’s important. It’s like we’re running on a treadmill, when you need to step off of that and go run towards the finish line.

Know what you need to do by creating a plan and schedule.

Anyways, this is the trick I did.

I got my phone and set an alarm for 1 hour. I put that phone in the room next to me – on do not disturb mode of course – and got to work.

Quite often we say, “okay, no distractions, let’s go.” And we end up getting distracted like before. That’s because we don’t know how long we should be working without distraction for.

By setting an alarm for 1 hour, it constantly reminds me for that hour that I can’t get distracted until I hear that alarm go off.