Do you want to be more productive? Do you feel like you don't have enough time? Are you constantly having creative blocks?Then this post is for you.

There is a battle going on between focus and distraction and I feel creative minds are highly susceptible. Our society is driven by technological advances and we as creatives love to use the latest tool or be on top of the latest news and trends.

The amount of information begging for our attention is growing exponentially so it’s easy to understand why we get distracted. We are always eager to discover, consume and share information. We're able to do this 24/7 as we are connected and have direct access to the world from the palm of our hands. This ability to stay connected significantly decreases creativity and production.

We’ve created such powerful tools, but end up letting the tools run us. We unknowingly create bad habits by keeping our heads down in our devices. Habits like not valuing face-to-face relationships, developing a thirst for external validation by letting the world know we exist, or losing focus on the tasks at hand that will help you advance and grow in life.

I can guarantee if you are reading this, then you are a culprit of many of these bad habits. I’m going to share 3 ways how you can take back your day and sharpen your focus to reach your goals.

1. SELF-AUDIT YOURSELF

I’m guilty of all the above mentioned issues. However, through consuming self-help material, I’ve grown aware of these flaws and I’m re-evaluating my every day decisions. We covered in the last post about how self-development sets the ground work and fuels us with inspiration. When we put focus behind the inspiration, it becomes the force of action that breeds execution and my renewed laser focus has been vital in my success as an artist.

Good ideas are useless without execution.

We are able to maintain this focus when we take a step back and give ourselves a self-audit. You must become aware and conquer your bad habits in order to progress. You do this by constantly performing evaluations of your day to day routine. It means taking the time to step back and reflect. When you work at such a frantic pace as I do, it’s easy to neglect the time necessary to evaluate the decisions you are making in life.

Through performing a self-audit, I discovered that most of my valuable energy was unknowingly being consumed by my bad habits. I had become a slave to my screens and my newsfeeds. I had a reactionary approach on life instead of a proactive one, meaning I solved other peoples problems as they came to me instead of taking initiative and finding solutions to my own.

An example of this is checking your e-mail first thing in the morning. Your e-mail will generally consist of people getting a hold of you to solve their problems. You should be starting your morning with focusing on the things that are most important to you to get done. Focus on yourself first and be proactive instead of being reactive to others priorities. It may sound selfish, but you have to be selfish at times in order to be selfless.

I find the most effective times to perform this task is in the first 30 minutes when I wake up in the morning or on the car ride to work. I sit in complete silence and talk myself through my goals and any stress I have at the moment. I go over what I have planned for that day and I even give myself motivational pep-talks to start my day off with some positive affirmation. I’ll be honest, I’m really good at talking to myself. I can be my best friend or my own worst critic.

Once you start practicing mindfulness and you alert yourself of your bad habits, it’s time to start eliminating the distractions.

2. ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS

Our attention is demanded by the likes of devices and the constant stream of app alerts, messages and push notifications. These are nothing but distractions and will hinder your focus. These platforms have solely one purpose and that is to engage the user and take up their time, energy and money. Every time you give into that push notification and take a few minutes to creep on other peoples lives on Facebook, you’re wasting opportunities that you can be working towards a goal.Especially if you creep multiple times a day!

Little distractions suck out the potential to accomplish BIG things.

These little distractions we give into add up to a massive amount of time wasted in a year. Now think of how many instances where people use the excuse of “I just don’t have any time.”

Here are a few ways to eliminate these distractions and make the time.

Turn Off Push Notifications
Do Not Disturb Mode
Distractions Board
Focus Blocks

Push Notifications

I was a slave to push notifications. Any time something popped up on my screen, I was forced to read it immediately and would quit whatever I was doing which was typically drawing. I had no idea the effect this was having on me and how my work flow was suffering.

My wife Emily had called me out that I was addicted to social media about a year ago and I got extremely defensive, basically because I knew she was right. I'm very stubborn so I was determined to show her she was wrong so I shut off all notifications that came through. Wow, what a difference this made. I still left on my e-mail alerts because what if an important message came through and someone needed something?

Performing a self-audit quickly made me realize that I was in a reactive state of mind and was putting someone else’s priorities first. I would stop everything I was doing to make sure they were taken care of. Once I became aware of this distraction I quickly killed those e-mail notifications as well and only check my personal e-mail after I have finished my work in the morning.

Do Not Disturb Modes

I was in the chat of the seanwes community listening to a live show, (which you should totally be there too), and Aaron Dowd of the Podcast Dude blew my mind when he mentioned Do Not Disturb Modes on your phone and laptops.

I immediately stopped what I was doing and researched how to enable these on my devices. I now set everything to Do Not Disturb from 9pm to 6am. I usually call it a night at 9pm and need to let my mind drift so I can get up at 4:30am to take advantage of my prime time to be creative and focus on my work.

The ability to unplug at nights and get away from distractions have been crucial in my new schedule and my work has significantly benefited from it.

Distraction Boards

If you’re having a tough time giving in to your distractions, keep yourself accountable by having some kind of board where you can write your bad habits on. If you’re constantly pinning useless information or devouring stories on your Snapchat when you should be writing your weekly blog post, then put that on your board.

Having a board full of your temptations will keep you accountable so when you feel yourself slipping, just gaze at the board and put yourself in check.

Focus Blocks

Another skill I've been practicing is scheduling "Focus Blocks." These are chunks of time in your day that are specifically scheduled on your calendar as creative time, just like a normal meeting. That means no distractions and that all your focus need to go into what needs to get done.

This is great if you work at a corporation and have a shared calendar. You can schedule that your busy during an allotted amount of time to focus on projects of high priority. Most of the time, people can wait on what they need and if they see you aren't available, they will try again later. Meaning you can avoid unnecessary e-mails or messages that will derail you from your focus.

3. TAKE BREAKS

I am a workaholic and tend to fill every minute of free time I have towards working on something. It’s a blessing and a curse but I have found ways to put some distance between myself and my work. I achieve this by taking breaks.

The criteria of breaks can range from all ends of the spectrum, but it’s important to escape and take your mind off what you’re consumed in. While you focus on getting away, you actually give yourself the opportunity to refresh and think of new concepts and ideas which will make your work even more successful.

I hear of people taking a day off every 7 days, or people taking sabbaticals in which every 7 weeks they take 1 week off to pursue secondary passions and to rest. I even hear of people taking a year sabbatical every 7 years!

For me, I have a hard time doing any of these as I’m in the early stages of hustling my way to the goals I want to accomplish so the breaks I partake in are usually installed throughout my day-to-day routine. This consists of going to the gym, riding my bike or taking a walk. More recently I discovered that I enjoy just riding in my car with no noise whatsoever so I can collect my thoughts. You may find taking breaks could consist of cleaning, hiking, jogs, yoga or meditation. These breaks allow you to clear your mind and refocus on the tasks at hand.

Performing self-audits, eliminating distractions and taking breaks have all become a part of my routine. In next weeks post, I’ll share the importance of having a routine and give you some insight on my daily / weekly rituals that have allowed me to progress at such an extreme rate.

TAKING ACTION

Creative minds are susceptible to these distractions and it’s easier said than done in becoming aware of your flaws and taking action. If you find yourself struggling to grow, chances are you are held captive by your technology. The power of our smart devices can be painted in a negative light, but if we are mindful about our usage, we can responsibly use their power to progress our careers and find balance in our lives.

Key Takeaways:

Putting focus behind inspiration becomes the force of action that breeds execution.
Self-audits allows you to become aware of your bad habits
Eliminating distractions opens up more time to focus on work
Kill push notifications, use Do Not Disturb Modes and create a distraction board
Find ways to take a break and unplug from technology and your work

We all have a choice of where we want to direct our attention. We need to choose wisely and realize the world can wait. I challenge you to perform a self-audit this week and find areas that you need to improve in that are holding up your progress.

Having a laser focus in the right areas will get you on the fast track to sharpening your creative mind and reaching those goals.

–

If you have found value in this post, you can share this or sign up for my weekly newsletter. If you have any questions or topics you’d like me to cover, please feel free to email me directly as I’d love to hear from you so I can keep growing as an artist and a teacher.

How to Sharpen Your Focus & Take Back Your Day