Each day remote workers face the biggest challenge yet. How to minimize distractions? Many successful business leaders, remote team managers and remote freelancers point to their ‘stiff necks’, stubbornness and resolute tendency to block out any person and anything that remotely stands in their way to achieving their ultimate goal of financial independence. But what if the distractions for which we succumb are those that are self induced?
The purpose of this article is to present tips on how to eliminate self-imposed distractions through the practice of mindfulness.
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Distractions are a common dilemma We are all distracted, interrupted and led astray by external factors beyond our control. The purpose of this article however, is to help the remote freelancer and small business owner operating virtually with information to tamper down on the variable we can control.
Social Media Distractions
Social media is just one of the many distractions for which we can exert some level of influence. In “Why we are distracted by social media? In the article appearing in the Frontiers in Psychology journal, Distraction Situations Strategies, Reasons for Distractions and Individual Differences,” it is argued that users of social media websites are driven to distraction because they:
- Feel the need to stay connected,
- Desire to show to others that they are available for immediate response,
- Use social media exchanges to avoid nonpreferred tasks and assignments.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, we (the writers and owners of this website) are human too. We are confronted, just as you are, with the drive to check our social media accounts and business profiles to quantify the Likes, Comments, and Thumbs ups generated from our posts.
The danger in checking too often is that we can revert to this behavior as a way to avoid tasks that are time consuming, dreadful, cumbersome. And yes, those that lack immediate gratification.
Here’s some of our personal success tips:
- Turn off our smart phones for one to two hours each day during lunch break, quick train/metro trips, drives to the grocery store and when running errands
- Turn off our smart phones during the weekend, vacations, and on holidays
- Turn off notifications
- Remove social media icons from home screen
- De-install social media platforms from smart phone and access through web browser only
- Resolve to increase time spent on crafting, puzzling and reading hard/soft cover books
- Determine to remain connected to friends and family through other in-person means (weekly lunch/brunch, game night, date/couples night) phone calls and joint shopping trips
Distractions of the Wandering Mind
There’s a lot of positive talk about mindfulness and meditation. However, the less knowledgeable (myself included) about the wonders of mindfulness would conclude that mindfulness increases activity of the mind.
This is not the case. In fact, exercising self control and regulating the thoughts of one’s mind during mindful meditation helps to mitigate a wandering mind. Believe it or not, mindfulness and a wandering mind are conversely related. Mrazek states, “just [a few] minutes of mindfulness training can reduce the frequency and salience of mind wandering and task-irrelevant thoughts.” (2012).
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Confusing? Yes, it is. But research conducted at the University of Chicago, the University of California- Irvine, and the/University of California- Riverside demonstrate that the act of meditation can help reduce the enticing power of distractions (social media, music, noise or other people). The study titled, “Distressed to Distracted: Examining Undergraduate Learning and Stress Regulation during the Covid-19 Pandemic,” concluded just that. Further, the research demonstrated that those in the study who practiced mindfulness were better able manage emotional distress, maximize their critical thinking and cognitive functioning abilities and to obtain their long term and short term goals.
In this regard, the Mayo Clinic offers these suggestions for adopting a mindfulness mindset.
- Focus on the physiological changes occurring in your body (skin sensation, breathing)
- Emphasize your senses (touch, smell, taste)
- “Live in the moment”
- Accept yourself and others more readily
- Focus on deep breathing (count to ten with deep inhales and exhales)
- Take a brisk walk
- Listen to relaxing music
- Be grateful for your many blessings
- Bless someone else, pay it forward, or volunteer
Mental Distractions from Worry
It is key, as a small business owner, entrepreneur and remote freelancer, you gotta find a effective ways to eliminate and manage distractions. Whether it’s social media, your own wandering mind, the television, porn, or incessant and chronic neediness of a family member or dear friend.
You have to find your own unique strategy for getting things done with the few hours you have to invest in your remote gig and online business.
Make sure your loved ones understand what it is you need to do during your work hours. Sometimes family gets confused because they see you home yet you’re saying that you’re working.
Anti-anxiety and the minimization of worry represents another avenue for tackling distractions of the mind. The Adult Mental Health Organization suggests that people who are prone to ‘live in their head’ and worry should adopt the 3:3:3 rule. Anti-anxiety and the minimization of worry represents another avenue for tackling distractions of the mind.
Of course, any mental interruption is a pull on your positive mindset (a necessary resource) that was supposed to contribute to your overall profit plan. It is true that working from home has its perks. If your whole reason for doing this is so you can enjoy more time with your family and kids, for example – then, by all means, put the keyboard down and hold them for a few minutes if they need you! But don’t let their cares occupy a permanent space in your head where you replay, play, rewind, repeat a voice recording of their problems 24/7 in your own mind. Sometimes you got to let people fail and/or succeed on their own.
In this regard, Mayo offers these suggestions which are an amalgamation of the two we’ve already mentioned. Be observant,
- naming three things you see
- sounding out three different sounds
- moving three different parts of your body
The Mayo Clinic informs those of us working from home that this activity helps bring us back to the present by slowing down the racing thoughts in our mind.
Of course, there are myriad of other ways to express mindfulness and to minimize the control distractions may exact upon you for which we have not mentioned.
It is key though, as a small business owner, entrepreneur and remote freelancer, you gotta find effective ways to eliminate and manage distractions you cause internally. Within your own mind.
Whether it’s social media, your own wandering mind, the television, porn, or the incessant demands from a family member or dear friend that worries you. You have to find your own unique strategy for getting things done with the few hours you have to invest in your remote gig and online business.
