Say No to Everything

Caution: Radical Honesty is required and given. 

Either you have been conquering your week thus far, or you feel trapped on the hamster wheel of production, and Friday couldn’t seem farther.  If the latter is you, then it’s time to address your distractions.

As technology advances and algorithms learn more about your interests, distractions become more ingrained in the fabric of our society.

Unfortunately, these distractions take up more of our mental capacity than needed. Some distractions flirt with the line of addiction, like our relationship with technology, and others are just out of our control, like a car accident that happens outside of Starbucks while you’re writing. 

Control your distractions.

Distractions that are well within our control can and must be avoided at all costs. You are going to have to be honest about your attachment to technology and desire for instant gratification. Others, it will be your unnecessary concern for things out of your control that needs to be addressed

Saying no requires self-discipline, self-control, and something meaningful to do. If you have nothing meaningful to dedicate your time to, mastery of the first two requirements will be much harder but all the more necessary.

Self-discipline and self-control are easier to master when you have something meaningful to spend your time on. Hobbies, creative projects, and good books are all low-stake activities to build these skills. 

You have to discipline yourself to stay focused on exactly what you set out to do. You have to control your primal impulses to seek instant gratification in shallow avenues. 

What is a Distraction?

Is this essential and moving me towards my goals? What your doing needs to satisfy both sides of the question; otherwise, it’s a distraction.

If not, you need to stop and find something better. If you are doing something essential that doesn’t move you towards your goals, then the time you spend on it needs to be significantly decreased. If your task is moving you towards your goal but is not essential, then you need to put it on the back burner and switch to a higher-priority task. 

Sometimes we seek out distractions because we simply have nothing better to do. Other times, it’s because we cannot be alone with ourselves, and that is a separate issue. Whatever the reason, you can choose to stop being distracted. You always have the option to shift your focus and attention. 

Maybe your time isn’t completely consumed by distractions. It could just be getting harder to stay focused on one thing. Unfortunately, there is a cost of constantly switching your focus. In this situation, you are distracting yourself by not staying focused.   

Set the Stage

The solution is clear: lock yourself in a room with only a piece of paper. KIDDING! But you do need to minimize the environmental stimuli greatly. Coffee shops are a great place to focus for those who can handle a little bit of white noise. 

Coffee shops like Blind Tiger Coffee are great because there’s room to work but also minimal extraneous stimuli. Now, this is not a good option if the sight or smell of food or drink alone is distracting. Coffee shops are the perfect place to get distraction-free work done for those who enjoy giving the monkey mind some noise to stay busy. 

While a completely empty room with blank walls isn’t suggested if your looking for silence, the library can be an unexpected place to enter deep work. The library noise volume is fairly low, with minimal increases due to spurts of foot traffic, but this can vary per branch. You can also find workstations and desks to use. If you are lucky, the library near you may even have private study rooms for you to reserve for added seclusion and focus.  

Final Thoughts

Once you have minimized the distractions in your environment, the only thing left to fight is yourself. Subconscious habits and the natural world may try to pry at your attention, but it is up to you to say no. You can further minimize until you have no choice but to work, but I don’t find this helpful. There tends to be a certain level of minimization that’s optimal, and once surpassed, the monkey mind becomes active again. 

Everyone has a different level of tolerable background noise. This is important to consider when determining if an environment is right for you. The more intentional you are about your efforts for your creative space, the easier it will be to say no to disruptions and distractions.