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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is that what you don't know can't distract you.

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Speaker 1: By reducing the number of audio and visual notifications you get,

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Speaker 1: you can increase the chances that you focus on whatever

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Speaker 1: you choose to focus on. I don't have to tell

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Speaker 1: anyone listening to this podcast that the world can be

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Speaker 1: a distracting place. Our phones and laptops can wind up

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Speaker 1: dinging all day long, to say nothing of people popping by. Now.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, sometimes things that look like distractions are

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Speaker 1: just the nature of collaboration or building your relationships. If

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Speaker 1: you work at home, I would suggest not scheduling anything

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Speaker 1: unin corruptible for the moment your kids get off the bus.

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Speaker 1: They might want to tell you about their days, and

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Speaker 1: planning for that is probably better than viewing that as

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Speaker 1: a distraction. And if you work at home, you actually

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Speaker 1: do want your colleagues to reach out to you if

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Speaker 1: doing so means that you are not a bottleneck, or

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Speaker 1: if you're able to redirect something that would take a

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Speaker 1: long time to unwind. That said, none of this is

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Speaker 1: either or, and many of the things that distract us

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Speaker 1: do not rise to that level of necessity. The key

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Speaker 1: is minimizing the unimportant distractions so that you have more

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Speaker 1: bandwidth for getting your work done and properly responding too

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Speaker 1: important interactions. So think about what generally happens when you

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Speaker 1: get distracted. I know that for many people, being able

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Speaker 1: to see that there are unread messages piling up in

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Speaker 1: your inbox can make you feel empty. If this is

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Speaker 1: happening on your laptop or desktop, one easy way to

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Speaker 1: avoid this feeling is to expand whatever you are working

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Speaker 1: on to fill the entire screen. Now you can't see

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Speaker 1: the rising number, or the bolded messages, or anything else

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Speaker 1: you are still logged in in case this is an

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Speaker 1: issue for you, but what you don't know can't distract you.

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Speaker 1: I would also suggest being judicious about your phone. Make

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Speaker 1: sure you have turned off alerts from apps you really

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Speaker 1: don't need to know a baseball score or most headlines

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Speaker 1: in the middle of a workday when you are trying

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Speaker 1: to focus. The trickier area is texts and calls. These days,

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Speaker 1: if someone is calling you, it might be a colleague

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Speaker 1: who really does need your quick input on something. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: many of us tell our colleagues call if it's urgent.

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Speaker 1: So one approach is to set your phone to send

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Speaker 1: just unknown numbers straight to voicemail, so you don't hear

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Speaker 1: a ring for SPAN calls. That way, you are only

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Speaker 1: hearing a ring when it is people you probably do

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Speaker 1: wish to hear from. Then look at your text chains.

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Speaker 1: Any highly active ones that tend not to be urgent

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Speaker 1: can be put into quiet mode. They'll still be there,

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Speaker 1: and when you choose to pick up your phone, you

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Speaker 1: can see that you have forty texts, and you will

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Speaker 1: know that the neighborhood association is still figuring out how

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Speaker 1: to get people to bring their trash cans in quickly

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Speaker 1: after the trash pickup, but you won't hear the digging

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Speaker 1: forty times. I'd say this can even be true with

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Speaker 1: colleague group texts. Go ahead and make any of them

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Speaker 1: quiet that you don't think are going to be urgent.

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Speaker 1: You might be wrong, but most of us pick up

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Speaker 1: our phones every thirty minutes or so. Anyway, The goal

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Speaker 1: is to get to the end of those thirty minutes

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Speaker 1: without having distracted yourself for anything that is not worth

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Speaker 1: distracting yourself for now. I know that many of us

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Speaker 1: wind up distracting ourselves in various ways, and we need

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Speaker 1: to work on that too, But limiting the inputs can

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Speaker 1: help a lot. We can't get rid of all of them,

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Speaker 1: but we can definitely get rid of some of them.

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Speaker 1: What you don't know can't distract you, and in the

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Speaker 1: war for attention, every little victory matters. In the meantime.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

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Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,

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Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod that's b the number four,

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Speaker 1: then breakfast po deep. You can also shoot me an

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Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com. That

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Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much, I look forward to staying in touch. Before

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Speaker 1: Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: Ye