Hacking distractions, using the “watch later” button

Human curiosity is a wonderful thing and that is one reason why we have been able to send the rover to a red planet billions of miles away or combined the tangy flavor of an orange into a genetically modified papaya which now has a crunchy texture.

Having said that, curiosity sometimes is also the reason that we are not able to focus on the task at hand and the mind keeps wandering off to other things.

If this feels like you, let me tell you a workaround to help you stay focused using one of the most useful productivity tools of all time;

a to-do list

All of us, who strive for better productivity use it as one amazing weapon. For those who do not, the concept is pretty simple.

On a piece of paper, you jot down all the tasks that need to be completed and you start doing them one by one. Once a task is complete, you check them off your list.

Now we are going to use the same tool, only this time we will be listing all the distracting little things that pop up in our mind while we are trying to focus on our main task.

As an illustration, just yesterday I was working on a report that was to be given on priority in a couple of hours. Then suddenly a small neuron in my head fired — it is my cousins’ birthday who lives in another town and I need to send him greetings.

Next, the phone buzzed, asking me to read the highlights of the last nights tech event.

Life does not slow down and this brain cannot stay calm. So, I simply picked a sticky note, wrote these two on it and got back to my report.

It takes only 5 seconds, but it gives your brain an assurance that these tasks will be looked after later. It will calm you down because now you have taken these distractions out of your mind and onto the piece of paper.

I guess procrastination might not be that bad a thing after all.

I had this idea when one day I opened my ‘watch later’ playlist on YouTube.

It is my primary video consumption platform and I watch things ranging from travel vlogs and cooking recipes to various lessons and tutorials.

Whenever I am watching a video, there are all these other recommended videos on the side that seem interesting because of the thumbnail and the title.

But to continue watching my current video, I just click on the watch later button on these other videos and later forget about them.

Going by the YouTube stats of unwatched videos on that list, I think I have saved enough time to get another College degree.

Although, never keep this list in front of you or you will be reading it again only to lose your focus. Keep it aside while you give all your attention to the priority task.

This works most of the time for me. Sometimes when I pick up my distraction list later, the tasks, which earlier made enough sense to distract me, seem so trivial that they no longer need to be done.

You could even end up just rolling this list into a small ball and tossing it into the dustbin; because honestly this list has served its purpose of keeping you focused.

Who needs more of to-do lists anyway (remember, these were just distractions!)

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.