Hi everyone,

During such a difficult time, it’s hard to concentrate on the things we have to get done. As a student, I can relate to a workload that does not stop, even for a pandemic, and things just need to be done by a set time. But we are faced with many distractions now with so much time “off”, such as Netflix and online browsing (in normal time for me as well). I thought it would be a good idea to discuss some distractions I am faced with during this time, so some of you can maybe relate, and how I overcome them and get all the workload finished. Distractions are a normal thing we are all faced with, I’ll take a distraction of Youtube over finishing my essay any day, but it has to be overcome and finished at some point. We just have to make sure to realise when we are being distracted and know when the cut off point is to restart.

One of my main distractions during trying to get anything done is my phone. The amount of times I always get on my phone when I am supposed to be cleaning or doing my assignments is unaccounted for. It’s like a cycle of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter non stop until I see that I have been online for about an hour and I get a shock and put my phone down, to then again pick it up and do the cycle again in 15 minutes. Honestly, I wish I had someone with me watching me every time I have to get something done to stop me from picking up my phone all the time. But one way I have found to get around this is just in your phone’s settings (if you have an iPhone!) If you go into your settings and choose “screen time” there are so many settings in there you can adjust to improve your time away from your phone. You can simply choose downtime, which locks your phone completely at different times of your choice, obviously, you are able to unlock it for an emergency. You can also choose “App limits” which sets a time limit on specific apps. There are loads more settings to play with there but these are the 2 I find most useful. It stops me from going on my social media accounts, of course, I can just unlock it with my password if I want to but it’s the concept that counts for me. When I pick up my phone and I am met with a message “this app is locked until 18.00” for example, then I know to put it down and get on with whatever I am supposed to be doing.

Another distraction I am met with often is doing absolutely anything else than what I am supposed to. For example, if I am supposed to be doing work for university, I will clean my room instead, because I will use the poor excuse reasoning of “It has to be done anyway, so I’ll do it now and do the work later” NO! do it now! I always do this and put my work off and off and off until I end up doing it last minute. Yet, a way I have found around this is to schedule when and what will be done. For example, I will plan to do my essay from 10am-1pm and then clean my room from 2-3pm. I know this sounds over the top and a bit “businessy” but it really helps, it allows you to not think of all other things you could be doing to get out of your work and lets you get on with the task its self. Everything is planned and there is no excuse to get out of what you are supposed to be doing!

Also, distractions mostly occur in my life when I try to do too many things at once. I’ll try and do some coursework but at the same time read emails and talk with my mom, it’s too much going on and neither of the things I am doing gets done properly, my mom gets annoyed I am not paying attention to her, I delete an email I might need and my coursework will become filled with gibberish. Try and focus on one task at a time, I know it may be easing to know you can finish doing many things at once but doing things half bothered is not the best, when you can make time to do things properly it makes things more fulfilled and well-done. Try and space things out more, as suggested in the paragraph above, it always works for me when you have more time to put more care into your tasks instead of getting distracted with doing too many of them at once.

A very basic thing we can also get distracted with, without even knowing is our own thoughts. If your mind is not with you on the task you are doing then whatever you are thinking about becomes a distraction. Sometimes we need to push certain thoughts and ideas aside in order to concentrate on one thing. Of course, don’t suppress thoughts as most times this leads to enlarging problems or even forgetfulness, just kind of put them aside to deal with them later so you can complete the one task needed to be done. Thinking of too many things at once can also become tiering which is also distracting and can make the task you are doing even more difficult to complete.

I hope you have enjoyed reading some of the advice I have on how to overcome distractions, this is part of everyday life and sometimes are difficult to overcome and get things done which is understandable. Do not rush, with most things you have plenty of time to finish them if spaced out in time correctly. Make sure to not stress too much over distractions, just acknowledge them, get rid of them and get on with whatever you are set to do.

Love, Kasia x