Distraction

The last two weeks have been riddled with distractions, or maybe just a distraction: the election. It’s been difficult to focus. Even famed time-blocker and Deep Worker Cal Newport has copped to distraction in the past week. (He said he scheduled for it).  

Frustration runs high for me when I’m not sticking to my schedule. I also know that frustration and self-flagellation are pretty unproductive, lead to shame spirals, and more unproductivity. None of that is new.  Here’s something that is: my distraction this past week gave me an aerial view on my current habits and work flow. Since I wasn’t nose to the millstone, I could focus on how I’m milling, so to speak.   

Looking down on my work, I saw places I could batch parts of my work together. I could aim to do a task like creating prompts once or twice a month, (instead of the weekly cramming session I’ve been doing). This should lead to a bit more efficiency, more free time, moer time to work on projects that require deeper focus.   

Which makes me think, maybe the distraction wasn’t necessary, but stepping back and assessing my approach to the work was.