Claim back over 2 hours daily that are consumed in the distraction realm
Do you suffer from constant interruptions at work?
Are you sick and tired of the endless meeting requests that suck up your valuable time?
Do you wish you could break free from the constant “chit chats” that happen at your office door when someone says,
“Hey, mate, got a minute?”
Do you end up feeling stressed out and wishing you had more time to finish that report that was due last week?
Well, I could go on, but…
Wouldn’t you like to know how to stop any of these things from happening and free up more time? I bet you would!
Well, you are in luck, my friend, because you are about to learn how to audit how you currently spend your days and cut out unnecessary time sinks. Period.
I am going to show you how to do an honest assessment of where your time goes each day and identify one, two, three, or more areas of time wasting you can reduce and save heaps of lost time.
Think about it. Even if you just trim 15 minutes here and there each day, it adds up to hours over a week that you can redirect to more important tasks.
Let me explain how I did this and claimed back over 2 hours daily that were consumed in the distraction realm!
A few years ago, when I worked as a curriculum development manager, I struggled endlessly with focus-stealing interruptions. But by diving deep to uncover root causes and solutions, I was finally able to take back control of my time.
Drowning in a Sea of Distractions
My weekdays typically began with wading through what felt like an endless barrage of emails.
I felt as if I was wasting so much time replying to queries that could’ve waited or threading through lengthy back-and-forths to clarify simple matters.
Staying on top of it all meant my mornings blurred by in a haze of emails.
Come 10.30 am, I was feeling quite stressed and in need of a coffee shot, for sure!
By mid-afternoon, things had usually quietened down a bit, but I’d be so exhausted from replying to everyone that real work hadn’t started.
But the worst was yet to come each day…
Without fail, the in-house trainers would start ambushing my office once lunchtime hit.
Debating best practices, troubleshooting technical glitches, requesting new materials—it never ended.
Trying to multitask conversations and writing just diluted the quality of both.
Even phone calls were disruptive, whether from suppliers following up on orders or contract trainers “touching base.”
Attention whiplash made it impossible to delve deep into any of my tasks.
Come 5pm, I’d feel overwhelmed yet under-delivering on goals I knew I desperately needed to achieve.
Something clearly needed to change, but what?
Taking a step back seemed to be the answer.
Only by fully understanding the root causes of all the time I was losing could I design effective solutions.
Illuminating the Problem
To start, I began carefully logging my full calendar in 15-minute increments for a full workweek.
The shocking truth left me speechless—I had lost a mind-bending 15 hours to distractions!
Breaking it down further, I figured out that nearly 5 hours had disappeared to emails alone.
Meetings and drop-ins ate up another 5 hours, with unplanned calls gobbling up the rest.
The amount of time and money that surface-level multitasking wasted astounded me.
To address this, I remembered I had read somewhere about setting boundaries.
Yes, I know you are probably thinking,
“Keith was a manager, surely he knew that approachability matters.”
Yes, approachability mattered, but so did focus.
Well, finally inspiration struck—I had an idea…
Why not block core hours for “limited interruptions” each day?
I tried it, and the instant results amazed me.
Releasing Boundaries
“Testing out-of-office messages from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.” became the plan.
- Immediate reduction followed in unnecessary emails pouring in.
- People learned to save minor matters until later on instead of constantly pestering me.
- Closing my door during protected hours cut drop-ins by 2/3.
A simple “deep in focus—please schedule meetings” sign did wonders.
Respect grew as colleagues coordinated with me via calendar.
I could simply accept, or tentatively accept, a meeting request.
Often, I rejected meetings that really had little to do with me needing to be present at all!
Taking calls switched to voicemail outside of my scheduled availability too.
By setting clear contact windows, people planned requests better.
Interruptions plummeted, giving me the gift of long stretches of time to really focus on writing the content and course materials without splitting my attention.
Guarding Solo Work Time
Yet challenges remained.
Social obligations enticed me away from work, like water cooler chats or joining colleagues to pick up afternoon coffee and pastries.
Although I could see that connecting with my trainers and contractors in these social interactions had benefits, these events also took a serious chunk of time daily.
I knew I just had to schedule large blocks of solo focus time and religiously protect it.
I set up an Outlook icon signalling deep work periods to deter pop-ins.
I knew that multi-tasking dangerously diluted productivity, and I had to minimise it.
Within a month, I began to see dramatic positive shifts emerging.
Over 2 hours a day recovered from the distraction realm brought 40 hours monthly to fully focus on writing engaging coursework.
Solving the root issue transformed everything.
Fencing Out Distractions
A few years later, these simple yet clever barriers stayed to keep task-stealing meddlers at bay.
- Project plans always accounted for protected solo periods to ensure deadlines were met.
- Saying no to low priorities deflected side tracking attempts.
- Colleagues learned unscheduled visits were unlikely; instead, they coordinated visits formally.
This allowed optimising each working minute through flow states without interruption.
- Clients also noticed the benefits of polished, well-researched materials delivered efficiently.
- Taking the time to understand core problems illuminates the path to regaining control through boundaries.
- By conquering distracting demons and guarding focus, productivity radically improved while quality standards rose.
The solution began by shining light on areas that had long gone unseen.
Thanks for reading…
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