Increasing Productivity in Quarantine
During quarantine and social isolation it can be difficult to get things done. With Netflix, video games and social media at our fingertips, all it takes is giving into the urge. This is what our ego wants. Instant gratification, mindless scrolling and absorbing content. I can relate with this as it is hard to fight those urges and actually focus on meaningful tasks.
Giving in and picking up our phone to glance at the notifications, even for a minute, can lead to a dangerous slippery slope. Once you pick up your phone it can lead to wasted minutes of mindless scrolling.
I try to fight the urge and focus on my work. As many people may know, when you break that focus and check your phone it is very easy to lose plently of time just looking at the same random Tik Tok video posts, useless information and other negative topics and rants on Twitter. Once again, I fall victim to my ego’s urge for instant gratification time and time again.
How do we get more focused and keep doing the work that matters? The work that will lead to success?
If you are like me and like most people that have grown up in the age of social media and smartphones, it can be almost automatic to look at our phones over 30 times a day. It takes real work and constant delay of gratification to finish our tasks before checking our phones. I read a post on social media that this time during quarantine is a real chance for each of us to better ourselves and focus on our goals. But if you are like me, I find that I just get way too distracted.
So, what I’ve found that really helps me refocus is to take it step-by-step.
Bad habits are hard to drop. Instead of trying so hard on our goals, I feel we just need to do one small thing at a time. Something we can all do is learn to reduce those social media consumptions times. Perhaps look at your phone only when you finished a solid hour of reading, as a way to reward yourself. I find small rewards really help your mind find that positive reinforcement. Take a break, go for a walk to really clear your mind of all those thoughts and just that buzzing that goes on up there in our heads. Small steps like this, taking breaks, rewarding ourselves with that short funny YouTube video. Remember, do this, only after you have finished a portion where you feel proud of yourself. I find those small breaks really help me to come back re-focused and re-energized, ready to do more work. They could help you too. Sucess is very hard. I have found out that it takes a particular hunger to really concentrate 100% of the time on your goals.
If you’re like me, slowly working towards success, you might fall back on these problems as well. It’s very hard to break out of bad habits, especially with our phones. I know I want to achieve success, many of us do. But sometimes bad habits are just too hard to drop all at once. For many of us we can call it a-work-in-progress… And honestly. I am fine with that.
Cheers to your journey to success. It’s a long road.
