If you feel distracted, read this

Open IDE. Type type type. Stuck. Pull up Twitter and watch the stock market implode. Whoops, just blew 10 minutes. Check email. Start answering customer question. Not sure how to phrase next sentence. Pause and think. Google an obscure bike repair question. Crap, wasted more time. Pull up editor. Repeat.

You’re familiar with the pattern, I’m sure.

I’ve been laser-focused on my company for almost 20 months. But my last 4 weeks have been a distracted mess.

So why is this happening now?

Psychologists, I think, have the answer. It’s called hidden goals.

Hidden goals are when you spend your time differently than what you said you wanted to do. At first glance, you might just call that being undisciplined. But it’s not the same.

When I pull up Twitter during the middle of writing this blog post, it’s because I have a hidden goal to hear from people and have a more gratifying social life. When I pause coding and lookup where to buy a new cassette for my road bike, it’s because I have a hidden goal to spend more time on my hobbies.

Your reasons might be more or less healthy than mine, but the outcome is the same: your mind is signaling that your life is out of balance.

I have no silver bullet to fix this, but I am trying these 3 things to tip the scale back to normal.

#1: Pockets of focus

If I know I’m distracted and don’t yet have a fix, one easy thing to do is simply embrace it.

I admit that I’m going to have shorter stretches of productivity, and it would be better to work hard for 30 minutes and take a scheduled zone-out break, rather than try to push through 4 hours and spend most of it at half-power.

This has the important effect that it protects your A-game from erosion. You spend less time doing low-quality work and therefore decreasing your skill.

#2: Be an explorer

If I have a lot going on in my life outside of work, another trick that’s helped is to treat the day like an explorer.

I show up and commit to doing my best for 3 hours so, and whatever happens after that is up to me.

I can either call it a day and go face whatever I need to. Or, if I choose, I can use my remaining time to experiment with how to be productive in the face of limitations like fatigue or extra stress.

The important thing here is that I try to have no expectations. If I become even a little more productive, that’s great, because it’s better than doing nothing.

This is particularly hard to do for solopreneurs because you don’t have a boss who can tell you to just take a break already.

#3: Explicit goals

Hidden goals burn your focus and demotivate you because you didn’t account for them in your day. But an easy way to fix that is to decide for each one if they really belong in your life, and then adapt your routine to them.

Should I actually be on Twitter following the stock market blow up? Probably not.

But should I give myself more time to socialize in a healthier setting? Absolutely.

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Now if you’ll excuse me, I have something very important I need to google.