I’m continuing my conversation of habits because they’re what help us create the success that we want in life, personal as well as professional.

One of the things I find that gets in the way of the success we’re working so hard towards is distractions.

Distractions are such a big part of our day, minimizing our efficiency and productivity.

One quick tip to help you minimize your daily distractions is to create a habit of moving any of the apps on your phone that constantly ding with notification to the second page of your phone (and turn your phone to silent).

When you can’t see the ‘you have 457 new messages” or hear the ‘ding’ from a notification you’re less likely to stop whatever you’re doing and check your phone without thinking about it.

How much time do you think you waste each day with distractions? Here’s a quick (and slightly frightening) insight for you about distractions and time wasted:

If you waste an average of 30-minutes per day with mindless distractions, that’s 2.5 hours per week, which equates to 10 hours per month, which turns into 122.5 hours per year (that’s with 3-weeks of vacation off your work calendar).

SO, just a quick and simple distraction, like checking your Instagram each time it dings, could quite easily be costing you over 3-weeks of work.

Let me break this down again:

30-minutes per day of distractions
5 days per week = 2.5 hours
2.5 hours per week for 49 weeks (accommodating for 3-weeks of vacation) = 122.5 hours
122.5 hours divided by 40-hours per week= 3.06 week.

Yikes.

What would the impact be in your business if you had an additional 122.5 hours per year to be productive?

How would it affect your focus, creativity, and productivity if you were to, let’s throw caution to the wind and say, use that 122.5 hours for self-care, so you had more energy for the other 46 weeks of the year?

Or spend time with your family? Contribute your time to a worthy cause?

Something to think about for sure.

So, to circle back to the habit…

Moving the little red dot that says you have 457 messages or hearing the Pavlov’s bell of your IG notification, and you won’t mindlessly pick up your phone and check them. Wasting 3-weeks of the year.

This one habit will help you be more efficient with your time so you can leave your office at a reasonable hour and improve your work-life balance (or as I prefer to say work-life alignment).

I did this for myself a few months ago, and it has been an absolute game-changer for me. I’m no longer checking my phone without thinking about it and I’m far more productive.

This one small habit of adding one extra step to access the notifications on your phone will help you minimize distractions and master your time management.

If this has helpful for you, please share this video with your team, community, or friend (who could use the extra time).

Pause for a moment and think about what you would do with that extra time. Then post a comment in the section below to let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.