What Makes You Lose Focus?

I make my room dark by shutting down windows and doors and then I work because this helps me to concentrate on my work.

Most of my sites are built with Wordpress, so I have the luxury of scheduling out my content for days or months at a time. For example, for two of my sites that require fresh daily content, have content scheduled out to October. One of the sites has three posts publishing a day--all original content.

That said, one is a top ten list style site, so if there is a current event that I can take advantage of I will quickly draft up an article for immediate posting. With everything else going on in the background I never feel overwhelmed to get my content "out the door" in a hurry.

Several other sites and marketing methods require fewer updates, but those are still planned for accordingly.

How do I stay focused? For one I just get my work done before I enjoy my time on the internet. I've been doing it this way for so long that it's almost a habit. I enjoy all of the niches I market and promote in, thus it's less of a chore for me to get my work done.

I work hard and play harder! I've always felt that the longer I procrastinated with my work, the less time I had to "play" later on, so it's a win-win to develop a disciplined schedule. Even then I wouldn't say what I do is work, more like a few hobby's or interests that I am involved in, if that makes sense.

BP

trolling warriorforum gets me distracted

I set 30 day challenges where I focus on a few important lead generation strategies. This month I will be writing 30 guest posts (1 a day) I will do nothing else until that guest post is written, then I'm free to implement other traffic generating tasks. Even on days where I get little done, I will always get one guest post written. At the end of the 30 days I will have 30 posts that each can get me anywhere from 200 - 500 visitors to my landing page.

I have had individual guest posts generate up to 1000 visitors, so I have high hopes to get a lot of traffic from 30 of them. This is more of a test to see what works best when it comes to guest posting. I don't plan on writing 30 guest posts in a row again, but I do plan on learning from the experience.

Next month I'll pick just one other specific strategy and do the same thing.

I think I should have been more clearer.... Although the response are all positive, they are not what I was expecting..
I was actually asking "what are your distractions"......
Thanks for positive comments though..

Laziness is the culprit for me!

Naruto, one piece (any kind of anime) make me lose focus..

As I am a student i give some of the time reading the news update and and some engineering stuffs.
I give a good amount of time in writing blogs, forum posting, social media sharing and other SEO tasks. these are my regular jobs.

youtube...

Headache makes me lose focus. I get this terrible headache at times that I end up not doing anything I have planned on doing for the day. I hate it though I love to give myself a rest once in a while.

Thinking instead of doing. My worst distraction

I think all sorts of things cause us to lose focus.

For me it is getting caught up on what I THINK I should be doing which is normally easier, such as updating my blogs etc...

When what I should really be doing is put off.

If you make sure what you are doing has a plan behind and a real vision as well as a goal you will be able to focus better or that is what I have found.

what makes me loosing focus right now is :
-when I'm checking yahoo email , I chose to look at the headline news as well ... lol
-in warrior forum, I'm forced to see the latest shinny products or sensational offer WSO..
focus is precious, indeed. I'm trying to do that.

I'm in Williston ND, for the oil boom (drill baby drill), and can't get internet in employing housing, so my internet on my phone is nice but it comes and goes. This is very distracting!!! lol, other than that youtube always gets me

It used to be Youtube and Yahoo News (not so much the news as the comments! LOL)for me. But now I use Leechblock so that I can't get to the fun sites while still working.

Posting on a thread about losing focus : ) I found this new software that flashes positive affirmations every 10 seconds or so. When I am on here and I use it and it reminds me to stop checking stats or floating around when I have work to do. The computer is not a place I come to for fun anymore. I come here to work. So I need to find all the little things that will keep me in check. I don't know about you, but I would really like to make my dreams happen. In order to do that I need to have singleness of purpose when I get on this thing.

That said I do like check up on the sports from time to time.

The one thing that ALL these posts have in common which is the BIGGEST distraction...

THE COMPUTER

I suffer from "THE NEXT SHINY OBJECT" syndrome.

And, "HYPE HYPE HYPE" syndrome.

And the "MAYBE I SHOULD TRY THIS ONE AND STOP USING THE TECHNIQUE I'VE STARTED WITH" syndrome.

And. "WHAT'S THE LATTEST, HOTTEST MARKETING THAT EVERYONE IS USING" syndrom.

And, "WHAT'S ON T.V.? I'LL JUST TURN IT ON AND WORK!" syndrome.

And I suffer from the worst,, "IT'S SO NICE OUT,, I'LL JUST GO RIDE MY BIKE AT THE BEACH" syndrome.

Getting better at this though. I turn off the t.v. for hours and get at my tasks. Tou'd be surprised at how distracting that damn thing is. It's a waste of time.

Robert X

I always find I make much more progress when I'm not tired. If I've had a few late nights I find it hard to delve into my current project and get much done. I always try and get a good nights sleep so I wake up refreshed and ready for a days work. Some days are more productive than others, naturally.

email
tv
news
items that need to be done, but aren't the best priority choice
forum

It's a business. So I try to treat it as a business. But sometimes I think that if I were my employee... i'd reprimand myself.

Best solution: schedule out the week in advance, keeping in mind which times of day you are most creative, tired, sleepy, etc.

So, Monday 7-11 could be for writing articles. 1-2 could be back link creation. 3-4 could be updating xyz blogs.

1. Not focusing on the Goal itself makes me lose focus in my daily routine.
2. Trying to add more content and make the next product better also makes me lose focus.
3. Keeping an eye in the email box just to have a look at what's going on out there, who's breaking it with what does a big part of losing focus.

Pretty women, my dog, anything shiny or colorful...

Too many tempting ideas & future projects...plus:

Facebook
TV
The news
Sometimes even friends take my time away!

Youtube!

Here I am supposed to be spending my time educating myself to be a better video marketer and Youtube expert, and I find myself watching way too many videos that have nothing to do with IM.

Youtube is the biggest distraction, I have ever ran into

The normal stuff like surfing the web instead of researching. Facebook, Skype, email...
I found that when I decide that I will only open those up after I finish the day, the productivity goes way up. Funny how that works lol

email
tv
news
research (looking at what others are doing successfully and backward engineering it)

My opinion - to make good money, treat IM as a real business. Schedule a week in advance taking into consideration the time slots where you are most creative, tired, etc.

I always find when you really want to concentrate it's best to wear big headphones and have a good playlist to avoid as many "outside" distractions as possible and keep you focused, it's easy to get distracted by so many things- this cuts a lot of them down

the NEWS, when i check my yahoo e mail, i usually read the headlines of the news, open them one after another, suddenly i lost couple of hours with no work

I lose focus as soon as i see a Victoria's Secret commercial come on. I'm usually perplexed for the next 30 minutes.

I am fully motivated (98% of the time).
I never do everything I have planned, or else I need to be planning to do more.
Personal Interruptions for a work-at-home-dad/husband do tend to happen.

When one aspect of an issue stumps or stops me (1), I move on to the next project(2), then an important email comes through and I touch up that issue real quick(3), I forget where I was at, so I reach for a project that's been on my back burner (4), then I hear from whoever I had an email out to and come back to project #1 and may or may not finish it... now I'm hungry, so I eat and spend a few minutes with my family. I return to finish project #1 or remember that I haven't finished #2 and decide to check on email (5) since it's been a while. I finish touching up whatever little details come out of my email (6,7, and 7.5) and head back to work on #1. Knock out #1 and start over on #2 since I lost my place. A brainfart rips through my head and I suddenly have an answer for the issue I dealt with last week (project #8 today).

Tomorrow, I'll try to finish up #2 and #4 made some progress, but won't be finished without another week of solid work on it. #8 is almost finished. Not bad because I knocked out a lot of issues throughout the day, but still not 100% of what needed to be done.

Somehow, I don't think this post covered it all, but honk if you've lived this scenario.

Facebook gets me every time. I think I will have a little look at what is going on there and next thing it is an hour later I have wasted. I also need to feel some pressure or i find it difficult to motivate myself.

Zara

I lose focus when I begin searching the net ,or go on Facebook. I also have a game I've been playing for 3 years and once I get on there I totally lose focus......LOL

im finding it very hard to focus on any work when the olympics is on

i love watching it, and i often have to actually turn the tv off otherwise i would get nothing done

i still watch all the finals

and today great britain had there first Gold Medal :-)

paul

It's much easier to lose focus than to find it again. When I was in corporate there was a study that each interruption would take you 15 minutes to get back to where you were before. Better to set aside blocks of time with absolutly no interuptions for say 45 minutes then take a good 15 min break.

Social media sites are a terrible attention distractor...

The thing that affected me the most was letting myself drift because of the drama around me. My goal right now is to stop carrying so much about others and start being a little more selfish

When my health is deteriorating...

Civ V and CNBC are my biggest distractions.

I use tools like e.ggtimer.com to break up my workday into task, which seems to help. Also, set a schedule and stick to it. You're better off setting a series of deadlines for yourself instead of a marathon shift.

Also, avoid trying jumping from project to project.....that will eat up you time faster than a pig in an apple orchard.

Lots of things to do & some are acted upon, the main factor that distracts from concentrating upon anything.

I mostly work upon marketing my stuff, build list & reserve more clients for my business but there are many many more stuff to add here in list which again makes me loose focus on my main goal, sad for me

It's a matter of discipline. Well, of course, when you're new on something, you don't have that high level of discipline yet. But once you've realized that what you're doing does not help you in achieving your goal for the week or month, you yourself will stop that. It's all about telling your mind how badly do you need to achieve the goals you've set for yourself. When your action plans are not deeply-rooted into your supreme goal, you can easily be disturbed. But if your goal has this 'by-hook-or-by-crook-I-must-achieve-my-goals' flavor, you'll surely do only those things that will help you achieve your goals.

Being a financial trader gives me a lot of reasons to procrastinate. This is one of the reasons why I resumed article writing works for my clients. Even then, I try to do just five articles of 500 words every 24 hours (per client). I spend rest of the time aimlessly wandering through tech forums while keeping an eye on the trading terminal..

There are a lot of factors that can make me lose focus. First is the Computer, TV, Radio, iPod and all other kind of gadgets that we have around us. But it's all about how we discipline myself on how to get back to whatever i am doing.

There are tons of things that can make me lose focus. I have attention deficit disorder so you can imagine. There is facebook, youtube videos, google news, etc. In order to focus you need to have a goal and a daily plan and stick to it. Have the discipline, because at the end of the day the results would speak for themselves. And wasting time would not turn into income that's for sure.

Food! That's what I lose focus to I also suppose no fast reward from method's which I am using.

I'll be working at the computer for hours and hours and then my dog will walk in with a toy in his mouth and tell me that it's time to play.

Although he's my main distraction, it's actually a good thing because if he didn't, I'd rarely take any breaks....and that's not healthy at all!

This Warrior Forum can make you lose focus. Sure it's a wealth of information for internet marketers, but how many of us our guilty of browsing the forum when we really should be getting some work done