OMG. This month’s 30-day challenge completely snuck up on me. It wasn’t until yesterday morning when I was writing the blog that I realized I had a new one starting immediately. You would think that it would be obvious given that it was April 1, but au contraire, mon frère.
For the past three months, with the exception of January, these 30-day challenges have started on odd days because, as you know, there are 31 days in January and March and 28 days in February. Plus, I’m writing about them the day after, so it gets a little tricky.
Anyway, I was racking my brain to think about which one I want to do. Luckily, I have an ever-growing list of potential 30-day challenges, but I have to seriously consider them before I commit to 30 days of doing them. For example, I have 30 days of being a kid, which I love and my niece Morgan (9) is completely on board with, but that one might require some planning, so I needed to hold off on that one for now.
Another one I’ve got is 30 days of volunteering and that one definitely requires a tremendous amount of planning, so that one was off the table.
I scanned the list for some others and then I remembered my dinner with my friend, Michael, the night before. He showed me some of his productivity hacks on his phone, some of which blew me away.
Make your phone like Eeyore… sad
Grey It Out
The notifications that we get ALL DAY LONG are designed to distract us. One way to minimize that (at least for iPhone users) is to change the view on your screen to grayscale. That way you don’t see those little red alerts trying to get your attention.See Ya, Social (Sort Of)
I know a lot of people who don’t have social media apps on their phone, but Michael did something brilliant. He moved his to the very last screen on his phone, so it’s not easily accessible on his home screen. He has to swipe several screens to get to it. Technically, you could use the search tool, but it probably takes just as long, if not, longer.Inbox Outta Here
This last one completely stunned me. Michael had no email on his phone. I don’t mean inbox zero even though I still dream of that someday. He didn’t have his email accessible on his phone. He only checks it on his desktop. This blew my mind. He said that he knows he can access it, if he needs to, but otherwise, it’s not there.
I thought about these, wanted to try at least one of them and decided to make this month’s 30-day challenge about focus. Something I desperately need to do. I love multi-tasking, but I’ve also heard that it makes you less productive than you might think, so it’s worth exploring.
To kick off my month of focus, I did three things.
I logged off of social media on my phone
Well, except Instagram, since that’s the only one where you have to post from your phone. Twitter makes it really difficult to log off. It took me a good five minutes to figure out where the “Sign Out” or “Log Off” button was. It wasn’t in the obvious places. It’s in your Privacy and Settings. I didn’t move my apps to the last screen or delete them… yet.I checked social media on my desktop
I decided that I’ll only check it in the morning and in the evening on my desktop. For someone who’s used to checking it probably 12-15 times a day and it could be more, this one will be a good challenge for me.I did one thing at a time
I love to multitask and I will change gears constantly throughout my day. I might start to get dressed, get halfway through and make my bed. Then, when I’m brushing my teeth, I might see that I need to throw something away in my recycling. I’m constantly shifting my focus, but yesterday, I was so aware of my habit of doing this that I tried my best to do stop and do one thing at a time. The hardest one being, of course, bebopping from one website to email back to a website and getting sucked into a rabbit hole.
I am very excited about doing this 30-day challenge. If you’ve been following my posts for a while, you know that I’m tackling areas where I need help like self-care (aka Gelf-care), trust, letting go, saying no and focus is no different. I will say that I’m incredibly focused when I write these blog posts at 6:00 a.m. I don’t let anything distract me. I don’t check email, social or go online except to write these and it feels great. Now let’s see how I do with the rest of my day. :)
Are you good about staying focused? Are you easily distracted? Would you completely delete email off your phone or do any of the things Michael did on his phone? Do you have any tips or tricks for staying focused? I’d love to hear them. Tell me below and if you like what you’ve read, please share it and subscribe below. Thanks!