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The_Secret_to_Reducing_Distractions_and_Getting_Things_Done
| The Secret to Reducing Distractions and Getting Things Done
Have you ever worked hard all day only to look back with wonder
at how little you achieved? Or set up a fool-proof new system
only to find no one – not even yourself - sticks to it? Or had a
great idea that never saw the light of day? There is a simple
yet powerful idea which can help you overcome all of these
problems.
I call this concept the 'trigger'. Triggers initiate nearly
everything we do during a typical work day. Anything that causes
you to pause, stop what you are doing and move onto something
else is a trigger.
Triggers come in a whole range of forms. The phone ringing, an
interruption by a colleague, mail arriving on your desk, a
computerised alarm – these can all be triggers. A sudden thought
or idea can also be a trigger.
Our routines and habits act as powerful triggers. If you are in
the habit of having a coffee at 10 o'clock every morning, that
habit is a trigger: it pulls you away from what you were doing.
Some triggers set us on the path towards getting something done
while others keep sending us off on a detour. We might say
triggers can act for 'good' as well as 'evil'.
On the 'good' side, triggers are the essential link between your
documents – diaries, to-do lists, written procedures, etc. – and
action. For example, items on your to-do list won't get done
unless you have some sort of trigger which causes you to refer
to the list on a regular basis.
Triggers are critical to getting less regular tasks done. In
Australia, most small businesses used to do their accounts only
annually because there was no trigger to do otherwise. Then the
government introduced a 'trigger' called the Business Activity
Statement which forces us to do our accounts at least quarterly.
(Whether this is more 'good' than 'evil' is debatable!)
You can use triggers – diary entries, for example – to prompt
things like a regular review of your plans, or a review of your
price lists or sales statistics.
On the 'evil' side, a whole host of triggers constantly conspire
to remove our focus. In fact an effective way of tackling
procrastination is to identify and remove the triggers that
distract you. For example, turn off the prompt that pops up to
tell you that "you have new email".
Try focusing on your triggers for a day. Every time you 'change
course' during the day, consider what it was that caused you to
do so. Write these things down. Conversely, when you think about
that job which you never seem to get around to, think about
developing a trigger to make it happen.
© David Brewster, September 2002
http://www.BusinessSimplification.com.au;
mailto:feedback@businesssimplification.com.au
About the author:
David Brewster runs Business Simplification and works with the
owners and managers of small businesses who know they want to
improve but simply can't find the time to do so.
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