Having lived a minimalist lifestyle for nearly ten years (by my definition anyway), I don’t have a lot of things left to get rid of that I don’t use or need.

But there is one big thing that I can do with much less of this year—distractions.

I have noticed lately that I have been finding it more and more difficult to focus solely on a single task.

Whenever I sit down to do some work, whether it’s reading, writing, studying etc. I hardly last 10 or 20 minutes before I’ve got a tab open on something new, or I’ve absent mindedly moved onto something else without realising it. Before I know it, it’s 9pm and I haven’t gotten much done that day.

Distractions come in so many forms. It’s impossible to get rid of them all, but there are some major ones that would make a big difference if I were to reduce them as much as possible.

Distractions

1. Daily news. Given the political environment, following the news last year always made me angry/upset/confused. There’s always something bad going on in the world, and there’s a line somewhere between being informed about world events, and knowing too much that it’s just upsetting.
2. Social media. Even though I stopped following people on my feed years ago, I ended up replacing them with news sites that used to be informative, but have degraded to pointless videos about things that don’t add value to my life.
3. TV. Every time one show finishes, and I think I can take a break from TV, another one starts up again and I end up watching about 4-8 hours of TV a week which I can do with halving. There are many better things for me to do with an hour each day.

Minimalise by…

1. Disabling all notifications
2. Deleting news bookmarks from my computer and phone
3. Turning off the colour to my iPhone so it looks boring
4. Logging out of social media from all browsers
5. Turning my computer off if I intend to do something else
6. Deleting all social apps from my phone
7. Keep a notepad to look things up later instead of doing it instantly
8. Unsubscribing from Netflix
9. Letting go of TV shows even though I haven’t finished them
10. Any other 100+ ways that’s not actually difficult to do

To be replaced with…

1. Face to face interactions. I want to spend more time connecting with people in person, including friends and family, and also I will make an effort to network more this year with people who up my game, in business, in life, emotionally, and intelligently.
2. Learning/investing in myself. Every dollar I have ever spent on a book has been well worth it, so I attended a training workshop this month that costed a lot of money but was worth every penny. Now I’m on track to make 10x the cost of that seminar back. I’m convinced the more I learn, the more I earn.
3. Deep work. I want to reach my goal of reading 52 books this year while making better notes so that I retain more of what I learn. I also want to spend more time writing for the both Minimal Student and Minimalist Meditations, and updating my journals on a weekly basis instead of monthly.

It all comes down to wanting to do things with intention and awareness. If I’m distracted less, I can focus more on doing all the things I want to in the time that I have.