Distractions that Threaten My Blog

Distractions are a part of life. We all experience them in our daily lives. Some of us are more capable of overcoming these obstructions to our productivity than others. I am the first to admit that I am very quick to become preoccupied with things other than the tasks I want to achieve. Working from home means that I succumb to these diversions even more often and easier than when I work outside. When I become distracted, it can last anywhere from a few minutes to sadly a few weeks. When I first started this blog, I was so excited. I had so many grand ideas about where it would go and how often I would post. The first few posts were met with great enthusiasm and praise, which was amazing, but also meant I had to constantly live up to that hype. After the initial two weeks, I began experiencing writer's block, and almost gave up altogether. I constantly told myself the famous last words "I will write a post tomorrow". The truth was, I was giving in to the many hindrances surrounding me. Here are the top five distractions that threatened this blog before it even truly began.
Negative Thoughts - This is the worst of all the distractions I have to overcome. It also is the main cause of the other distractions. Insecurities are a part of human nature. These can lead to extremely gloomy thoughts, which affect productivity.

After the initial success of the B Word, I began having doubts about being able to continue writing such high quality content. I felt the next few blog posts were not living up to the standard I wanted to project. I told myself I will never have another experience like losing a baby or having to quit birth control. Because these were such personal posts, a part of me was also afraid of the vulnerability that would be involved in writing other similar posts. These thoughts have affected me for the past two or three weeks. In order to not think about the fact that I was giving up on something great, I used the other distractions on this list.

Social Media - Social Media is a big part of our lives now. During my downfall into negativity, I used social websites, mainly Facebook, to avoid facing my fears. I would sit and scroll every morning and every night. These websites can be distracting not only due to the addictive nature, but also because they can warp our perception of reality.

Even as a logical adult who knows that the vast majority of content on social media is fake, one can be afraid of being too real, especially in today's society where mistakes are not accepted. Looking at social media can make one vulnerable to those same negative thoughts. Therefore, it can be a cycle. Using social media to escape depressive thoughts, but becoming depressed because of social media.

TV - I love TV. This usually is just background noise for me as I go about my day. However, when I am in my head with the pessimism and hopelessness, its stops being background noise and becomes at the forefront of everything.

Of course I don't have to be depressed to watch TV. I can spend a whole day binge watching a series that I have been waiting for. Because my boyfriend and I have very different tastes, it's also easier to watch when he is at work, which just so happens to be when I should be working as well.

Whatsapp - Chatting with friends when you should be working can be a huge hindrance to productivity. Being an introvert I luckily don't have that many chats going at any given time.

However, I do chat to my best friend and my boyfriend throughout the day, sharing memes or, ironically, discussing work. These conversations can sometimes go on for hours on end.  I am also in a few group chats and we all know how that goes.

Household chores - I have this tendency to want to do all my household chores before I start work. This is because I like to relax while working, rather than thinking about that needs to be done. This in itself is not a bad thing. However, we all know that feeling when you're cleaning and then before you know it you're re-arranging the whole house.

This happens to me often, because I love to clean, and because I like to keep items arranged in a particular order. If one item is moved out of place I must fix it before I can relax or even before I can sleep at night. Let's just say this is not a top priority for my boyfriend or my daughter. So often times when I am supposed to be writing or doing other work, I can find myself re-ordering things and completing other household chores.

How I Deal With These Distractions 
Of course if one wants to be successful one has to overcome obstacles. I try to filter out the bleak thoughts and replace them with positive reasoning. Instead of thinking about what I can't do, I remind myself of what I have done, and how I achieved it.

My social media consists only of Facebook and Instagram, and I usually don't even scroll through Instagram. I post and go. As mentioned above, my Facebook usage is normally restricted to morning and night. However I try to shorten the morning scroll, and sometimes I go days without even opening the app. About once a year I also deactivate my social accounts for a month. This helps to keep me grounded, and gives me time to reflect.

I just work in a room away from the TV, and use music as my background noise instead. Sometimes I will watch my series at night when my boyfriend is asleep, or dedicate one day of the week to Netflix and chill all by myself.

I think we all mute group chats on Whatsapp. There is only one group chat I do not have muted, and that is the one with my 3 best girl friends. That is because we don't send spam, and we are all so busy that we unfortunately do not spend as much time chatting as we would like to. The same cannot be said for other groups. I only enter group chats with people I really care about or for a specific purpose such as planning an event. I mute these and turn off notifications. Recently I have also taken to turning on Do Not Disturb mode while I'm working as well.

Some household tasks are inevitable. I try to concentrate these to early mornings so I can have the remainder of the day for work. I also schedule bigger jobs such as rearranging for a day on the weekend.

To err is human, and we all have things in life that seek and sometimes succeed to distract us from the important things. It is in our best interest to know what our diversions are and do our best to defeat them. This is still an uphill battle for me, but I am getting better at it. So in case you were wondering, The B Word is here to stay.