Avoiding distraction seems easy until you have to do it, like not answering the telephone.

And at times, we don’t even know what is a distraction. One pet peeve of mine is the phone ringing. And if you are like 99% of people out there, most of the time you’ll either get telemarketers or calls you could have waited for.

These calls drag you out of your productive mood, break the flow of your work, forces you to focus on other things and then you are left to yourself to gather up the energy and go back to what you were doing before. Of course, you are highly susceptible to indulge in a little break at that stage or just downright become lazy.

One answer is to not answer the phone. Yes, even you Business Owner. Sounds crazy but you’ll thank me. One thing I have started to do is if the phone number isn’t recognized or one of the “unknown caller” types, I don’t answer. I give myself a break every two hours, I will check voicemail then. And by the way, the same is true, even more so for emails.

Little things like that sound trivial but they help in many ways. I am less stressed about having to answer calls. I keep my productive moods much longer, sometimes for a whole day. I avoid temptations when friends call and ask to go out. It’s little things like that pave way for a greater tomorrow.