Tug-Of-War for Your Attention
You wake up to your iphone’s alarm on your bedside table. One eye open, you check your email while your body wakes up and eyes adjust. A couple unexpected emails with schedule changes pop you over to your calendar. Only to see that the reschedules conflict with your son’s soccer practice time. You close out of that, annoyed that your day is already pulling you in too many directions.
As you head to the coffee pot, you check your text messages. Three unread texts with more demands on your time. Again, you close out - you need coffee first. You wake up your kids and start to get them ready. Two of them hand you paperwork for activities (due today). You realize you are out of milk.
The phone rings and it is your doctors office, calling to remind you about your appointment that completely slipped your mind. You can’t find the post-it where you wrote down the schedule changes you needed to take care of first thing.
Welcome to the tug-of-war on your attention that you might experience daily. I haven’t even gotten to the part where you sit down and open your laptop and start work. The browsers open, the social media alerts, dings, slack messages, DMs, you know the drill…
As entrepreneurs, parents, and technologically plugged in adults, this is our life. Our attention has been hijacked. This is a reality that we all face. Sure, you have intentions about meditating before you check email, journaling as you wake up, and exercising before the world’s demands hit. On a good month, you do some of those things. However, the attention tug-of-way is always lurking.
It feels like wearing too many hats and not wearing any of them well…
There is a combination of technology, too many to-do’s, overcommitting, over-delivering in some cases and limited amounts of time that create this pulled in too many directions phenomenon.
I want to show you how to walk away from this tug-of-war! Here are three easy ways to get started:
Clarity. Capture all of the distractions and things that pull you away from where you want to be spending your time. Make a list. Write down a) the unwanted distractions and b) what you’d like instead?
Outsource. Which of the hats that you wear, would you rather someone else own? Get clear about what you’d prefer to take off your plate (even “someday” if you feel it isn’t possible now).
Boundaries. What is ok with you and what is not ok with you? Make a list. Maybe you would rather not see any kids paperwork in the morning hours. Or you’d rather never hear a text ding again. Or you like the dings and you don’t want the badges tugging at your attention (the red circle with the growing number of texts waiting for you). Its all a personal preference but take charge instead of being the victim to the tug of war.
Once you take these three basic steps, you can start to take back your attention one step at a time! I promise, the tug-of-war does not have to be your reality. DM me the word “war” for more info HERE.
