Fighting With Distractions (And How To Keep Going)

byjamesprc

745 followers

Updated 5 years ago

The last two weeks I was pretty much being overrun by things that have nothing to do with my online business or my work. I'm sure you have experienced similar phases yourself, not just once, but multiple times already.

That's just how life is!

When we are in the middle of making great progress, distractions just HAVE TO knock on our door :P

However...

This time around, I managed to pull myself out of it real quick. And I was surprised how I improved when it comes to dealing with distractions, especially personal ones.

That's why I thought it would be a good idea to tell you how I did it and write about it in my weekly WA article.

Basically, all I did is I went back to the basics: Starting small.

Here's how it all happened...

Doom's Day

Last week, I had the first day in a while where I got nothing done. Absolutely nothing.

In the months before that, I've gotten pretty good at going through my daily task list:

• Article writing,
• Blog commenting,
• Social media,
• Forum answers,
• Video recording and video editing.

But that particular day last week, I did really nothing - for many reasons.

Actually, they're not "reasons", they were simply excuses. I had tons of good excuses to get nothing done. Sounds familiar?

What Absolutely Doesn't Work

My first instinct was this: Tomorrow I'll just do double! A bit less sleep, skip gym, and focus on the minimum... In theory, this is doable. Well here's a thing I had to learn about theory: It rarely works out that way in practice.

Long story short, of course the next day I had plenty of new excuses to not do the tasks either. But this time, not only didn't I do my daily tasks, I also didn't go to the gym and I slept less than I should.

Where did all the time go? I was really disappointed in myself. The distractions were winning.

So no, doubling down doesn't work. All it does is create more mental stress and blockage. And remember, during these days I was dealing with tons of personal distractions that were coming into my life through my phone.

This absolutely didn't work.

What Worked Instantly

As I've already mentioned earlier, I had to go back to the basics.

Well, what ARE the basics? Wealthy Affiliate of course. This is my core business plan, so to speak. That means my blog is what matters, that's where I bring all my traffic to, and that's where commissions are made.

So I scraped my whole daily task list. Everything.

And I went back to the very first thing that every single beginner has to learn: Spend 30 minutes per day on your blog, do ANYTHING that brings your business forward - even if it's just a little bit.

And that's what I did...

Every day, I sat down 30 minutes and I did what I've already known for years how to do:

• Keyword research,
• Writing,
• Adding images and other media,
• Meta descriptions,
• Backlinks.

I don't need to think about these tasks anymore, I've done them hundreds (or thousands) of times already.

It was a breeze.

And I wasn't mentally blocked anymore.

After only a few days, I was back in my groove again.

Consequently, the daily tasks list grew again. I was back posting my links on social media again, answering comments, connecting with people. Shortly after that I was creating videos for my youtube channel again.

In short, I was able to fight my distractions in a comparably short amount of time.

Where are you today?

So I gotta admit, the strategy is nothing new and probably considered "common sense". If so, see it as a friendly reminder that the basics still work - and will continue to work :)

Are you dealing with any distractions right now? How are you fighting them? Let me know in a comment below!

Keep up the hard work and all the best to your success!