It’s happened to everyone. You lost your cell phone. Where is it? Well, what most people do is borrow someone else’s phone and start calling it, listening for the ringing. But what if you set it to silent? This happened to me recently. I could not find that thing anywhere and I couldn’t hear it quietly vibrating.
So, I came up with an idea: I put my wireless Bluetooth headset on that was tied to the phone. I would go into each room of my house and press the button on the headset. When I finally heard the little “connection” beep, I knew the phone had to be within about 30 feet of where I was standing. Then, I turned out all the lights, and called the phone. When it lit up with the call, I found it! But it sure would have been easier if the phone had some sort of “vibrate but ring really loud if I am lost” setting. Maybe I’ll email Steve Jobs about that.

I am beginning to believe that I have undiagnosed Adult A.D.D. I’ll be working on an article, or replying to an email, when some little link catches my eye, and before you know it, CLICK! (Insert 30 minutes of wasted time here).  The Internet has not made it easy to “stay on task.”  Add smartphones and Facebook to the mix and it’s amazing that we ever complete an online project!

Well, this week, I want to share some of my favorite tricks to keep you focused.

1. Close multiple windows on your computer.  While the computer can easily multi-task, YOU cannot.  Only open the one program you need to get the job done.  You don’t need a little floating window off to the side showing your Twitter stream, Facebook updates, or stock quotes.  Shortcut: Hit the Windows-key + Home to minimize all but your active window.
2. Turn off Facebook Push Notifications on your Cell phone.  When this capability first came out, I thought it was pretty cool.  After all, when someone commented on one of my posts, I got the equivalent of a “text” on my cell phone tell me so!  However, it became incessant, interrupting my train of thought on a regular basis.
3. Only have your cell phone check your email manually, not every ten minutes.  In other words, when I am ready to check email on my phone, I simply click the email button and it checks right then and there, not at 2am in the morning, waking me to the important arrival of a random piece of spam.
4. As an addendum to rule #3, only check your email at specified times.  Constantly switching to your email program to “see if anything new is there” will waste time and break your concentration. Make a personal rule only to check email BETWEEN projects, not during them!