Monday Focus Check

The Distraction Parking Lot

I was 3 minutes into a work session yesterday when my brain sent me a list.

The dentist callback. An email I’d been putting off. The car that’s been making a noise. A random thought about a conversation from last week. Your brain sends all of it with equal urgency. And once something shows up, it keeps running in the background until you deal with it.

The distraction parking lot

When something pops into your head mid-work, write down 2 things: what you were working on, and what just showed up. The first keeps your place. The second captures the distraction so your brain stops holding it.

We’ve talked about this in recent editions… your brain treats unfinished business like open browser tabs, running quietly, using up space. Bluma Zeigarnik, a Soviet psychologist, documented this in the 1920s: incomplete tasks stay mentally active until they’re finished or recorded somewhere. Writing the distraction down closes the tab. The alert stops.

Come back to the list when the session is over. Some of the things on it will still matter. Most won’t. Either way, you kept the work.

A2A launched

Will and I launched Awareness to Action last week. It went really well. We’re looking forward to having more people join. Text A2A to 33777 or go to FocusNowTraining.com/A2A-course to find out more.

Here’s a little about it and a sample module follows that:

Sample module: