How To Manage Digital Distractions

This week, how to get control of your digital distractions   You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   The 2021 Edition of Time And Life Mastery Download the FREE Areas of Focus Workbook More about the Time Sector System The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   Episode 188 Hello and welcome to episode 188 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show. Before we get started, just a heads up if you are a regular listener to this podcast, next week the show is taking a break. We will be back, though in two weeks time. Okay, on with the show.  Do you find yourself distracted by all the digital inputs coming your way every day? There’s email, of course, and then digital news, social media and now we are inundated by Slack and Microsoft Teams messages. If we don’t control it, it’s non-stop and just looking at your phone’s Home Screen is enough to set off anxiety, stress and overwhelm. It’s not healthy and we do need some strategies to get control of this. Well, that’s what we will be exploring in this episode. I just want to give you a heads up about the early-bird discount on my Time And Life Mastery course. The special offer will be ending today, I will keep it on for a few more hours for you. I would not want to you to miss out on getting yourself enrolled in, what I believe to be, my most comprehensive and best course. This year, I have re-recorded the Time Mastery part and it now includes lessons on how two being your goals and long term plans in the Time Sector System.  It’s a brilliant course and I do hope you join me. The special offer ends in the next few hours, so don’t delay. More details on the course and how to get enrolled are in the show notes or you can head over to my website—carlpullein.com. Okay, let’s get on and dive deeper into ways to overcome all these digital distractions and that means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice.  This week’s question comes from Sadiq. Sadiq asks: Hi Carl, do you have any tips on managing all the messages and emails I get each day. It’s got the to point where I don’t have any time to do my work because of all the messages I get. Please help. Hi Sadiq, thank you for your question.  So, let’s look at where most of our digital noise comes from. To do this I want to look at the Hierarchy of Communication. This is the order of importance of your communications.  First up is face to face communication. If you are in front of the person you are communicating with, nothing and I repeat, nothing should ever distract you from speaking with that person. It does not matter if it is the checkout assistance in the supermarket or your boss. If you are in a face to face situation, the person you are communicating with takes precedence over everything else. Full stop. No negotiation. If you cannot, or will not, accept this rule, stop listening. This podcast is not for you.  Incidentally, I would go so far as to say this also applies to Zoom and Teams video calls. Again, you are talking to a person in real-time and they deserve your undivided attention.  Next up are phone calls. This is similar to face to face. You are talking to a real human being in real-time. It is just plain rude to not give this your full attention.  Phone calls are becoming increasingly rare these days, but if do receive calls, you need to treat them appropriately. Third in this hierarchy are text messages. These are different from social media messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and What's App. Now, I would include your Slack and Teams messages in this list too because thes