Amazing achievement is simple …. if you defeat the ‘Distractor Factor’

by ken winston caine

Never enough time to do everything we want to do or that seems to be demanding to be done.

Amazing accomplishment is simple.

It’s all a matter of selection. Of prioritizing and focus.

You ALWAYS must ignore most of what is calling out to you, most of what is seeking your attention. And focus your attention on
what will provide the greatest return on your efforts in the present and that will lead you into the future of your higher choosing, of your design, of your desire, of your imagination.

This is always true.

I lose track of this truth frequently. And have to recapture it.

I’m easily distracted by fascinations and curiosity.

Find it easy to justify pursuing them — at least far enough to get a feel for what they are about at the core.

I call it research.

It’s part of what I do. Part of what a writer does. Part of what an explorer does. Part of what creative genius does. Easy to justify when viewed that way.

But it can’t be allowed completely free rein.

Because it will eat you alive. Destroy you. Make you feel inconsequential and impotent.

One way to allow it to serve you while keeping it from crippling you is to time it.

Use a little digital kitchen timer.

Decide that you will allow a particular distraction for x number of minutes. Set the timer. And dig in wildly, freely. And when the timer beeps, stop. And get back to the intended priorities.

Stopping is hard. I don’t always do it. But I’m working on it.

Vicious self discipline.

But you get to choose your legacy.

Will you have produced a great body of outstanding, creative and fascinating and helpful work that made a real difference in people’s lives?

Or will you have spent your time chasing thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of fleeting fascinations, each briefly until the next flitted into view and imagination?

I sometimes find myself very much in danger of the latter. Even though I know and have proved the law of focus.

Even though I have accomplished some really fantastic things in this too short of a lifetime.

It’s just so easy to justify each new distraction.

And the internet makes it much, much worse.

An endless number of rabbitholes are just one click away. Every day. Every hour. Every moment. And everyone (including me) who puts up a web page is doing their best to convince you that their rabbithole is a must-see essential.

Have you ever been to Tijuana’s tourist district?

I lived on the border and shopped in Tijuana regularly for close to a decade.

The smart merchants don’t wait for customers to discover their businesses. Instead, they stand in front of their shops and seek to engage every passerby in banter and conversation and convince them that it would be a mistake not to check out the wonders that they offer inside.

If you shop Tijuana frequently, you learn to ignore them.

You cross the border knowing what you are looking for. Why you are there.

And if you acknowledge the charming, teasing and conniving merchants at all, it is simply to ask them, directly, to the point, “Do you have X?” X being whatever it is you are looking for that day.

I am learning to apply the same principle to life and to the internet.

And I’m getting more ruthless about it. Out of necessity.

I doubt that I have another 50-some years to produce and share the things I want to produce and share.

So I’m developing ways to quickly test and de-fuse fascinating distractions. And I’m developing ways to tame the internet.

For instance, I’m currently training myself to check and respond to e-mail only once a day, near the end of the day. Wow! What a difference that makes in the quality of my work and productivity. But sometimes I slip. And find myself checking every few minutes. Seeking excitement. Seeking distraction. Hoping someone I’ve written will bless me with a distracting reply… In another few months, I hope to be checking e-mail only once every two days. When I get to that point, I’m going to set up an autoresponder message so people who write to me will know what to expect.

In the meantime, when I find I’ve slipped down another rabbit hole and blown away another hour, day, week or month, rather than beating myself up over it, I’m allowing me to to recall the amazing satisfaction and success that I’ve achieved when I’ve honored the Law of Focus.

That seems to be having a more reinforcing and constructive effect.

—-
—-

How do YOU keep yourself on track, joyfully, and without feeling as though you are castrating your creative libido in the process?

How are YOU taming the internet?