Ever had a meal with someone that was constantly checking email on their phone?
It comes off as annoying and rude to the other person.
I was “that guy.”
I was the guy that checked email when someone was in mid-sentence. I constantly checked email in front of people. At the time, I didn’t realize how rude it must have been. Probably because I didn’t care. I reasoned, “I’m busy–if I don’t check my email now, I’m being rude to those relying on a response from me.”
That’s before I understood two things:
- The quality of time you spend with someone outweighs the quantity of time you spend emailing the masses.
- Your degree of focus is directly correlated with the degree of focus within your gadgets.
In this chapter, I’ll be sharing a four step process for auditing your gadgets. The purpose of this audit is to evaluate whether the tools you use hurt you more than they help you. After which, we’ll snip off the tools that hurt your focus.
Disclaimer: As I’ve said before in this book’s forward, I am only helping people that want to help themselves with tools that have helped me.
The lessons and suggestions that will be laid forth below are just that–suggestions. They’re methods that I discovered after interviewing and observing some of the most successful business people, designers, programmers, marketing experts and even celebrities.
The Fox and The Hedgehog
In the bestselling book, Good To Great, Jim Collins uses an example of the Fox and the Hedgehog. The fox, he reasoned, was good at many things; however, the hedgehog was good at one thing: defending himself. And in the end, the hedgehog wins every time.
The devices that destroy focus are the devices that propose to do many things like the fox. Instead of choosing devices that do many things (like the fox), one should use gadgets that do one thing very well (like the hedgehog).
In order to eliminate your “fox devices,” you must follow five steps:
Step One: Make a list of your gadgets
For example:
| Gadgets |
|---|
| iPhone |
| Macbook |
| Kindle |
| iPod |
| Playstation 3 |
| Vizio |
| Rolex (no, I don’t have one) |
| Garmin GPS |
| Sony Digital Camera |
| Flip Video |
| iPad |
Step Two: Categorize your gadgets
For example:
| Gadgets | Category |
|---|---|
| iPhone | Phone |
| Macbook | Computer |
| Kindle | e-Reader |
| iPod | MP3 Player |
| Playstation 3 | Video game console |
| Vizio | T.V. |
| Rolex (no, I don’t have one) | Watch |
| Garmin GPS | Navigator |
| Sony Digital Camera | Photo camera |
| Flip Video | Video camera |
| iPad | Computer |
Step Three: List out their capabilities
For example:
| Gadgets | List of Capabilities | Number of Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone | Make phone calls, surf the internet, play music, get directions via GPS, watch videos, tell time, alarm clock, as of January 2010, there’s well over 50,000 apps for the iPhone | 60,000 |
| Macbook | Computer, phone calls (via skype), play music, get directions, watch videos, tell time; in short, there’s easily a million capabilities that the computer wields | 1,000,000 |
| Kindle | Read books and magazines, eventually apps | 2 |
| iPod | Mp3 player, take video footage, take photographs, alarm clock, apps, podcasts | 60,000 |
| Playstation 3 | Video game console, music, photos, movies | 4 |
| Vizio | Watch television | 1 |
| Rolex (no, I don’t have one) | Tell what time it is | 1 |
| Garmin GPS | Get directions | 1 |
| Sony Digital Camera | Take photographs | 1 |
| Flip Video | Shoot video footage | 1 |
| iPad | Comparable to the iPhone: make phone calls (via skype), surf the internet, play music, get directions via GPS, watch videos, tell time, alarm clock, as of January 2010, there’s well over 50,000 apps for the iPhone | 60,000 |
Step Four: Calculate the number of distractions
In this step, you’re going to tally up the number of capabilities (in step two) and subtract the categories (in step three). This gives you the number of distractions present within that device.
Obviously, this is an art–not accounting. Don’t worry about GAAP. Just try and outline a ball-park figure.
For example:
| Gadgets | Number of Capabilities | Number of Categories | Number of Distractions ((Capabilities) - (Categories)) |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone | 60,000 | 1 | 59,999 Distractions |
| Macbook | 1,000,000 | 1 | 999,999 Distractions |
| Kindle | 2 | 1 | 1 Distraction |
| iPod | 60,000 | 1 | 59,999 Distractions |
| Playstation 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 Distractions |
| Vizio | 1 | 1 | 0 Distractions* |
| Rolex (no, I don’t have one) | 1 | 1 | 0 Distractions |
| Garmin GPS | 1 | 1 | 0 Distractions |
| Sony Digital Camera | 1 | 1 | 0 Distractions |
| Flip Video | 1 | 1 | 0 Distractions |
| iPad | 60,000 | 1 | 59,999 Distractions |
In total, the devices above wield 1,180,000 distractions
Our goal is to get this down to zero. We’ll be able to do this with everything besides the computer. One can’t snip out a computer–they must instead learn how to manage it down to zero. Here’s how we’ll turn 1,180,000 into zero:
Step Five: Snip
Snipping is covered in another chapter in order to cut out distraction. The concept surfaces itself in our society over and over. Simply cut out distractions:
| Gadgets | How to Snip | New Number of Distractions |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone | Ditch the iPhone and buy a regular phone | 0 |
| Macbook | Learn to manage your computer–this will be covered in a future chapter | 0 |
| Kindle | Do not download any Kindle game applications | 0 |
| iPod | Sell your iPod touch and replace it with an iPod shuffle–or simply remove all apps besides music | 0 |
| Playstation 3 | Sell all video games, don’t download any photos; use it strictly as a blue-ray player | 0 |
| Vizio | This one is a deceiving one–in our audit, it masks itself as having no distractions; however, its entire capability is a distraction; for this, you may want to make the decision to completely cut out this gadget | 0 |
| Rolex (no, I don’t have one) | The Rolex possesses no distractions; it may be a distraction for other people around you; but maybe that’s your thing. You need the attention ;-) | 0 |
| Garmin GPS | Requires no snipping | 0 |
| Sony Digital Camera | Requires no snipping | 0 |
| Flip Video | Requires no snipping | 0 |
| iPad | Don’t purchase one; but if you do (for travel, butsiness, or whatever), follow the methods outlined in the future chapter about managing focus when using a computer | 0 |
After snipping, we have zero distractions.
Of course, this doesn’t address the computer, which is the biggest distraction of all–cutting out distraction from a computer is its own chapter. And you’ll find out why once you read it.
So how did we eliminate our distractions? Simple. We either snipped the whole gadget or snipped its additional capabilities.
You may be resistant to cutting out an entire gadget–especially if you love it and its new. Seriously, though, ask yourself if the benefits of which you derive from using the gadget actually contribute to your career or life goals. If it does, then how so, and can you back it up with analytics?
For instance, if you reason that you need your iPhone because your job is social media; do you have actual analytics that show you how many of your mobile tweets convert to sales, or paying customers? If you do, more power to you. If you don’t, find the analytics on your mobile browsing behavior. The results may surprise you–and shock you into ditching the habit all together.
Your next action
Go through this five step audit right now and either snip out the distraction-filled devices altogether, or snip out its unnecessary capabilities.
Trust me, and many others, this simple act will give you the tools required for you to get focused. As soon as you complete this focus audit, you’ll free yourself to make massive strides in achieving focus.
IMPORTANT: If you enjoyed this article, I'd like for you to experience much more by purchasing the book. You can check out via Paypal or Google Checkout. Click here to buy the book.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
The idea of dumping gadgets that may expose you to distractions is a good one. But I think, it’s even more important to learn how to keep the gadgets you need and use from distracting you.
On your computer (my MacBook), one very important thing is to stop it from reminding you of the emails or messages you just got. Decide yourself, when to go to your inbox. (Did you ever whitness a presentation, where that bubble came up with a mail preview like “Yeah Paul, you’re right, our boss is a jerk, but…”?)
Don’t use your mobile phone (my iPhone) as a distraction. Don’t feel like beeing cut off from the world, when auto-check for emails is disabled and the ringer is set to silent.
To get focused, one of the most important things is to learn how to switch things off – (on) your computer, (on) your mobile phone, your tv, your radio,…
If someone’s in your office, there are little phone calls and definitely no emails or messages more important than the person standing vis-à-vis from you.
And by the way: Distraction is not that bad. Sometimes you need a short distraction (pause) to help you in staying focused on your main goal. That’s what makes the pomodoro technique successful.
{ 1 trackback }