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Overview

These days we are constantly bombarded with distractions. It’s hard to go five minutes without being accosted by an email, social media notification or text message.

In this distracting environment, it is more important than ever to be able to focus.

If you feel like most of your workday is spent on little tasks that don’t matter, and you’re not sure why you’re doing them, here are some key points to help get you back on track with the big priorities in life: your overall goals and dreams.

In this article, you’ll learn why we stop what we’re doing to respond to an email.

You’ll learn that being busy is not the same as being productive. You’ll also find out how to apply Getting Things Done in every sphere of your life.

Big Idea #1: We are easily distracted and therefore lose track of our priorities.

Have you ever done this? You’re working on something important when an email pops up. If you’re like most people, you’ll probably forget about the high-priority work and answer the email. That’s because our minds are fickle, especially when we think of “high priority” as opposed to “low priority”.

We are inundated with information these days. We receive tweets, emails and text messages.

When new information comes in, we can’t tell if it’s important or not unless we pay attention to it. For example, when you get an email notification on your phone, you won’t know whether the email is spam or a job offer until you read it.

Because we are constantly distracted, it’s hard to focus on a task for long enough to complete it.

In addition, the amount of information and tasks that people deal with today is increasing. As a result, quantity becomes more important than quality when it comes to productivity. Salespeople have sales targets, teachers have graduation targets for their students, etc.

However, quantity is not a good way to judge productivity. Lots of emails and meetings may make you feel like you’re getting things done, but it doesn’t mean that the work was actually important or worthwhile. The best way to measure how productive someone is would be to see whether they’ve made progress on the goals they set for themselves in the beginning.

Focusing on quantity can cause you to lose track of your larger goals. For example, if you want to be a writer, but are always distracted at work and have to work evenings because of it, then you need to get organized at home and at work so that you can focus better and pursue your ambitions.

Big Idea #2: To reach your full potential, you need to be both creative and well organized.

Do you consider yourself a dreamer or a doer? Both traits, perspective and control, are needed to achieve your potential. Some people only have one of those characteristics while others lack both. If someone lacks perspective or control they’re not able to manage their obligations in line with their goals. They tend to be anxious and always in emergency mode. When it comes to hosting dinner parties they’d probably struggle as well because they can’t organize themselves properly. On the other hand, some people might excel at organizing but lack any perspective whatsoever. They don’t have much imagination and creativity so they prefer classifying existing ideas instead of coming up with new ones on their own.

Some people are too controlling, while others aren’t in control at all. The ideal balance is to be both organized and creative. People who have this ability can come up with new ideas but also implement them effectively. They’re the type of people who know what they want and how to get it done. Whether at work or at home, these types of people are successful because they know how to set goals and accomplish their tasks efficiently.