I don’t know how it happened but my new smartphone decided to change my notification settings and now my day is punctuated constantly with peeps, gongs, pings, and beeps.
Such noises might not be blogging related, nor appropriate for these blogging exercises – they are alerts to the business of blogging and tremendous distractions.
These alerts tell me someone’s left a comment on one of my sites, followed a site, + or liked it, responded by contact form or direct by email, or through a social media channel. The noises shout at me to stay connected and respond now to each reaction and response to my blog posts.
It’s exhausting sometimes, and definitely distracting.
Four alerts went off during the writing of this post so far.
To get to this point in the article, if I can despite the distractions, I’ve responded to two blog comments, one tweet, four Google+ notifications, and one contact form request to this point, and I’m barely into this article.
Oh, and the cat wanted out, and back in, during the same time period.
It’s a wonder I get any blogging done.
We all have a variety of distractions that attack our attention. Your blog exercise today is to pause and identify what is pulling your attention away, and establish a plan to restructure all the busy distractions you face every day.
For me, this meant going through all of my mobile apps, both on the smartphone and tablet, and turning off all notifications save ones of priority importance. I then went through my computer and turned off email and other notifications.
I am debating adding a cat flap to my office door.
I’m working on my time management skills to not just manage my time better but my sanity.
I expect you to do the same.
Excuse me, my tablet is now pinging my attention.
Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
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