There’s a big reason we have so many issues trying to accomplish important work. We aren’t clear about what is the main attraction and what are simply distractions.

When you think about your daily activities, how many of them could be classified as a distraction?

• Binge-watching House of Cards
• Scrolling through a dozen screens of Facebook updates (and associated ads)
• Reading gossip about celebrities
• Spreading gossip about celebrities
• Checking email unnecessarily

– Ironically, I got derailed from writing this blog post because checking my email seemed critical (it wasn’t).

But there are even bigger things than this. Your job could be distracting you from the attraction of a fulfilling and impacting career. That fad diet could be distracting you from a more meaningful, healthy lifestyle. Treating those migraine headaches may be distracting you from dealing with the stress you’re under and finding a sense of peace.

What can you do to overcome distraction?

Define Your Main Attractions

If you don’t focus on what is important to you, then distractions will continuously lead you around by the nose.  Take some time (yes, you can carve out an hour this week) to quiet your mind and ask yourself what is truly important to you. Write these down on a sheet of paper. It could things like your family, but try to build toward things that are specific to you and less generic (e.g. having a close-knit relationship with my kids, helping people overcome poverty or being active and fit).

Organize Yourself around Your Main Attractions

Knowing the big picture of what you want is helpful, but you need to understand how to apply it to your daily life. Use your calendar, a task managing app or even simple lists on a sheet of paper to make sure you’re taking care of what is important to you. Start by looking at the inventory of your personal main attractions and write down activities that help you stay focused on your goals and values. Revisit this at the end of the day. Evaluate what you did well and where you can improve. Now you can make a new list for the next day.

(Better yet, create “Success Lists” instead of “To Do Lists”, from Gary Keller’s book The ONE Thing. Brian Johnson explains the book succinctly in this video.)

Systemize Good Habits

In her latest book Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, Gretchen Rubin disagrees with trying to make healthy choices each day. She encourages us to make ONE healthy choice and then make it systematic… a habit. Here’s a section from her interview on BigThink.com:

…the advantage of a habit is that once something’s on automatic pilot, then the brain doesn’t have to use any energy or willpower to make a decision. You’ve already made that decision. You’re just moving forward. And so it happens easily without any thought, without any willpower, without any effort. You’re just on cruise control and then you can do what you want to get done.

If you’re having to make deliberate choices to focus on your main attractions, you may reach a point of decision fatigue and then the distractions win again. If I plan to go to the gym, I set out my clothes and get my water bottle ready the night before. It has become a habit. Once I’ve done that, I rarely miss my exercise routine.

The world will always be full of distractions and the little gremlins will try to knock you off course. But, if you identify your main attractions and then organize and systemize your life around them, you have a better shot at accomplishing what is important in your life. What could be greater than that?

My life is my message.

-Gandhi