Exorcising demons of productivity/focus
WARNING! non-Catholic and non-Christians, It’s not my intention to offend any belief or religion, the article is not serious–on exorcism. It is serious on productivity, and how to exorcise it, yeah!
I thought I’d read about exorcism and maybe pick up some tips on how to do it–no, I’m not exorcising demons or help out somebody who has been possessed–not that kind of demon at least; and not that kind of possession. I’m trying to exorcise productivity/focus stealing demons, the kind that sneaks undetected, lures you to the cesspool of the Internet until you get a fleeting feeling of wandering aimlessly–then suddenly, the sun is down (I live in Manila, Philippines so the sunset time doesn’t change a lot, it’s always around 6PM). With nothing to show for it, just answered a couple of emails, talked to a couple of people to get status, crossed out some items on the appointment book, scribbled some new ones–that’s it, doesn’t feel like a full day, doesn’t feel like a good day at all.
My only background and knowledge in exorcism is watching the Linda Blair movie, that is the extent of my knowledge on the subject–so I went ahead and Google up some references; what do you know, I found one at wikihow, How to exorcise demons, can’t help but be amused on this find, I’ve always pictured exorcism rituals to be found on esoteric libraries, with really old books inside a building with gargoyles atop–but hey, I found one at wikihow.com.
Again, I don’t mean offend the non-Catholic and non-Christian readers, I’m not in anyway stating that exorcism is consistent with my belief, I’m not endorsing it–this post is not supposed to be about belief, it’s just about productivity and focus, the exorcism part is just verbal sauce.
Let’s get on with it.
- Command the demon to be silent-it will try to talk nonsense to you, but command it to be silent. Shutdown mail notification that keeps on popping on your system tray; Turn off that Yahoo messenger, that meebo, and especially that TweetDeck. Command the demon to be silent!
- Using the demon’s name, command the demon to leave-the demon will resist, but be firm, command it to leave. If you don’t want to uninstall TweetDeck, Outlook or any IM, just don’t turn them on so they can’t nag.
- Confess your sins and ask to be forgiven-to ensure that there is no unforgiven sin that the demon can use against you. Admit that you spend more than 1 hour on reddit, maybe another hour on youtube hoping to be rickrolled, because deep inside, you really want to hear ‘never gonna give you up’. Confess that a simple ‘hi, how’s it goin’ beside the water cooler can easily stretch to a
five minute10 minute chat about who else in the office got pregnant or who’s having an affair. Confess that you obsess about your Google analytics, WordPress stats that you can’t help but look ever so often
On a more serious note
I’ve been fighting this battle about focus for a long time, I don’t think I will ever be rid of interruptions completely, so whatever measure I can take–that makes sense to me–I will, Here’s my cheatsheet so far.
- Uninstall growl (a notification software in Mac) and turn off all notifications-those balloon notifications, no matter how nice they are, are actually distracting. It takes the mind some time to refocus, so distractions like these steal time from you.
- Re evaluate all the software that you are using-freeware is okay, opensource is okay, but if they have ads in them, it distracts your eyes; eventually your focus; again, the mind needs time to refocus. If the ads is an essential part of the software’s business model, then consider paying for the software if it will make the ad go away.
- Listening to white noise-I don’t much listen to white noise, actually what works for me is when I bought those nature sounds, like the sound of water falls or the ocean–then put it on ‘repeat one’ in iTunes. ‘Moonlight sonata’ works wonders to me
- Don’t keep TweetDeck (or any other Twitter client) running in the background-Twitter is addictive, it will steal your focus every chance it gets
- Have a fixed time and interval when checking emails-while less of distraction than Twitter, still is a distraction. Keep a schedule on when to check emails; maybe every 30 minutes works for you. I check it every hour.
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