How To Build Disruptions Into Your Daily Routine

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

If you feel like you’re constantly being distracted or pulled in different directions by different disruptions when you’re trying to get work done, this episode is for you.

I’m going to share what I have done when this has happened to me, and how you can really turn all of those different distractions and disruptions and just build them into my day to day.

If you want to learn how to build disruptions into your daily routine, without really having to create a very strict plan or schedule for yourself, that’s what this episode is all about.

Get the full show notes at www.cheerstoproductivity.com/26

Links Referenced in this Episode:

▶ Listen to episode 9: Managing Distractions When Working From Home

▶ Submit a question or topic for the podcast

Connect with me:

Website | Instagram

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Introduction

If you feel like you’re constantly being distracted or pulled in different directions by all of these different disruptions when you’re trying to get work done, this episode is for you.

I’m going to share what I have done when this has happened to me, because yes, it happens all the time. Life happens and things change and things go wrong. And in this episode, I’m going to share what I do to really turn all of those different distractions and disruptions and just build them into my day to day.

So, if you want to learn how to go ahead and build in disruptions into your daily routine, without really having to create a very strict plan or schedule for yourself, stay tuned because that’s what this episode is all about.

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelm goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine so let’s get started!

Hey! Welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. Now this episode was inspired by a Facebook group comment that I got not too long ago. And it’s something that I really, really wanted to talk about because not long after that, I had a conversation with a friend that was like, okay, I need to record an episode on this. So here we are.

The Perceived Problem

So what I want to talk about today is how to really build in disruptions into your daily routine. And I honestly don’t know if that is the best way to explain what I’m trying to explain. But hopefully after this episode, it’s all going to make sense.

So here’s what seems to be the problem. There are so many distractions. You have so many, non-business-y things that are going on in your personal life. So whether that’s kids, your work, your health, anything.

It kinda tends to kind of disrupt and interrupt whatever groove you’re in whenever you’re working. Or perhaps you don’t really know when you have time to do any of the things that you want to get done.

So these seem to be the problems that I am trying to really help you combat with this episode. So in episode nine, I actually share about how you can manage distractions in your day to day when you’re working from home. So definitely go back and tune into that episode if you haven’t heard it yet.

How To Build Distractions Intro Your Day

But in this episode, let’s kind of talk more about just, instead of trying to manage all of these different disruptions and distractions, let’s go ahead and just make them a part of your day to day.

Look for Patterns

And so, what we’re going to talk about here is you want to try to see if you can find patterns that are already happening in your day that seem to be distractions.

For example, what is happening every day that you’re like, “oh, I need to go do this,” or this happened, or, you know, there’s usually something recurring that happens either every day or every week. Or around the same time that you could probably take a notice of and then just build a plan to kind of not let that disrupt you or distract you as much as it normally does.

So for example, If your kids are the ones that are always distracting you. Or they’re always bugging you about something. Maybe they’re always asking you “hey mom what’s for dinner today?” Or, “Hey dad, can we go outside and play?” Like whatever is happening.

And it might be, it might be a question. It might just be that they’re being loud. It might be that anything, anything can be, can be happening. But can you pay attention to see if this happens every day?

So, let me use myself as an example. So whenever we get home from picking up my son from school, he has certain things that he does every day. And so maybe he would be like, “hey mom, what’s for dinner?”

And so I started noticing this trend. I’ll be like, “baby, I’m working. Baby, I’m working. Baby, when I’m at my desk, I’m working.” And so I noticed that he always just wants to know what we’re having for dinner.

Find Solutions to Avoid Disruptions

So instead, what I did was I created a little, it’s like a little calendar, like a dry erase calendar that’s in the kitchen that has what is going to be for dinner every day. And so now he just goes there and checks and is like, “Ooh, we’re having this for dinner.”

And so that kind of avoided that little distraction, so that doesn’t happen anymore.

But sometimes it’s not that easy. Sometimes you have no idea what they’re going to ask, but you know that they ask something.

And maybe if that’s the case, then perhaps you take a moment when you get home and you say, “okay, before I head over to my desk to get work done, is there anything you want to talk about? Do you have any questions? What’s going on?”

And try to get that out of them right? So that way, once they’ve let out whatever they want to get out of your system, whatever they want to ask you, whatever they want to know, now, at the end of that conversation, you can be like, “okay, now I’m going to go to work,” and then you get to work right.

Finding and coming to realize that certain things are happening can help you start to get a routine going, whether that’s for yourself or that’s for your kids or your pets or your spouse or whatever it is. Okay.

What To Pay Attention To

So another thing that could be an example of would be, when you see that you have dishes in the sink, or you have laundry waiting for you in the dryer since two days ago. whatever.

You can start to notice that okay, these things are always distracting me and they’re always making me lose focus.

Can you see if they happen at certain times in the day? Do they take place at the exact time, or like a, kind of around this time? And can you find a time in the day to really fit them in so that they’re no longer unpredictable?

Fit Distractions Into Your Daily Routine

Again, I’m going to use myself as an example. So for myself, I work from home with my daughter. She’s with me all day, every day. She’s one. She’s one. So we have a routine of around certain times, she does certain things or she wants certain things.

There’s no exact time. She doesn’t have an exact time that she goes to take her nap. She has an around this time, she usually takes a nap. And there’s not a set time that she naps for. There’s not, she always naps for two hours or always naps for an hour and a half. No, she naps around this timeframe.

So do you kind of get where I’m going? But I just make sure to fit those patterns into my day.

So they’re similar to time-blocking, but not really. In a time block, you would actually dedicate certain specific times of the day to do certain tasks. For me, I operate on like a pattern basis.

So we have a pattern that we follow throughout the day. And that pattern includes now me washing dishes when she’s eating her snack. Why? Because that would be something that’s always in the back of my head, right?

Like, oh my gosh, I’m just working here. And there’s a pile of dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink. So that causes distraction. That causes you to lose focus. Maybe you just can’t stop thinking about it. And then maybe you just stop what you’re doing and go wash the dishes. And now you can’t get back into work mode or your time slot for working has kind of passed.

So instead, when I started realizing this was happening, I just made it a part of my daily pattern. So I said, okay, whenever I’m already not working, which is when I’m giving my daughter her snack, now I’m going to wash the dishes.

I usually listen to podcasts episodes or put up my phone and pull up a course or something. And I’m doing that as she’s eating her snack. And now I’ve eliminated this distraction because I’ve kind of built it into my routine, into my pattern of the day.

Write It Down

So, this is where I’m really trying to get at here. And I hope that these examples or these scenarios can really help you with whatever is causing you to feel like you don’t know when you’re going to get work done because you have all of these other things happening.

So what I am going to really, really strongly suggest here is take a really good look at what’s happening each day. If you want to write it down, if you want to track it, however you want to do it, but really take some time to think, okay.

What is happening? When am I getting distracted? And really look to see what seems to be a commonality between these distractions and if it’s something that you can just build into your daily routine.

Episode Wrap-Up

Okay, so do that and then come back and let me know. Let me know How you found this episode if you got anything out of it.

This was probably one of the most unprepared episodes I have ever recorded, to be honest, because I was struggling to figure out how to describe what I’m trying to say. And I said, you know what, I’m going to wing it. I’m going to share my scenarios and see if that helps.

But if it doesn’t let me know, because I can definitely record a follow-up episode, once I know more or less what is going on with you. But definitely, look to see if you can find any patterns in your day.

And there might be some that you may not even realized were actually a pattern at a glance. You might be like, Nope. It all happens at random times in the day. Nope. It doesn’t happen. And that’s okay.

It doesn’t have to happen at the same time each day. Okay. So I want you to keep that in mind.

So if it, so actually I’m going to say. Definitely write it down. If you’ve never done anything like this before, definitely try to write down as much as you can. Even if it’s just a little sticky note where you’re like, okay, I got distracted because of this or I can’t focus because of this.

And then do that for about a week and then see what is happening every single day. And then make a plan to just build that into your routine.

All right, I’m going to stop talking because I’m going to keep rambling if I keep going. So thank you as always for tuning in. And take a screenshot of this episode, and then DM me and let me know what your thoughts are because I really want to know if you found this type of ranty unplanned episode content useful.

And I truly want to know if I need to record a followup episode to kind of help turn this into a better, more defined process so that way it’s easier for you to actually implement. So definitely send me a DM on Instagram @CheerstoBlogging. I will be looking out for it!

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit cheerstoproductivity.com/26. And before you go, make sure you subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!