Blocking Distraction
- Peyali
- Aug 1, 2016
- 3 min read
In general, various distractions pose a serious threat to our learning process. The couple of minutes spent here and there, let us say, on social media or on other activities seems innocuous. At first, the amount of time you actually spend on things that are not essential to your work add up yearly to precious hours – may be even days - that you could have otherwise spent productively on your learning tasks or could have used in upgrading your skills. However, we all know creativity is an overwhelming as well as unique business. And it requires solutions which are unique too when you’re experiencing problems. We all need a renewed vigor or passion for the work that we do from time to time.
We come across so many different kinds of distraction that we can avoid simply by focusing. It happens many a time that we sit at our desks, to get some work done, and immediately we need some mind awakening potion to redeem the left out work. Next we login to Facebook, which takes almost 20 minutes - then 60 minutes of YouTube. By the time we get back to work, it is almost lunch time.
You’re not alone when it comes to distractions. It is not easy staying on task when you need to work for hours at a time. Nevertheless, at the same time there are ways to walk through a block and keep the "creative spice" fresh in your spirit.
There are a few things that could help you with blocking distractions. Noise cancelling head phones – which help in maintaining focus by blocking ambient noise. Not only do they help in preventing sounds from distracting you, they can also bring out your creative insight when paired with the right music. Kill two birds with one stone; You can do your work while listening to some soft music at the same time.
Another amazing set of gadgets we can talk about are smart phones, which you have reason enough to avoid at first thought, since they usually just create distractions. However there are many android apps, for example, which help in blocking distractions. For example, ‘FocusOn’- is an android app that helps in focusing on the task that actually matters to you. Focus on your deadlines and fight procrastination. The app teaches you strict self- discipline and efficient use of time. There are others apps as well like ‘ClearLock’ , ‘Focus Lock’. But do apps really help in blocking distractions? There is no full proof of that. Regardless, if you look at a wider spectrum, smart phones can help in maintaining your creative flow in other ways. With it being a wireless device you can carry a smart phone with you anywhere you like and store all your "stuff" (important data you need for your workflow for example). There is no longer the excuse of not having pen and paper. Smart phones are ubiquitous in our lives.
Well to be very practical if distractions are really becoming the major obstacles to your work process; try to access yourself wholly towards it and not just the creative part. Don’t just treat the symptoms; pull up your chair and listen to what the block has to say. Have a conversation with it. Listen to it, learn from it, and then move on. Face your fears, whatever comes across. Things, which ignite your fear, face it more even if it has nothing to do with creativity.
Also moving around here and there helps. Kinesthetic learning has proved to work better. You could even go for a photo walk. Just take pictures of random things and look at what you find afterwards. Watch good movies, trust me it’s a stress buster and on top of that you could even get to learn new things from it and at the same time keep your creativity alive.
Sometimes you can also try to get off from the technology i.e. dang out of the internet thing and move even faster. Seriously, the more I think about this, the more it concerns me; it’s just like plague: I don’t understand why do we so often solve our creative problems with uncreative means. Why not solve it with exercising little bit of imagination to overcome where we are stuck.
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