Maintaining Focus During Extraordinary Distractions

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When my network went down, I felt compelled to look up to see if anything strange was flying around above me. No network meant no emails, no text messages, no social media, no internet. It turns out it was an external line that went down by perhaps a random winter weather event.

But still, one can’t help to be distracted when we’ve got spy balloons, UFOs, and other unusual events going on around us. Look bird!

It is easy to get distracted and overwhelmed. Regardless, we must press on. While it may be hard, keeping focus is more critical than ever. If you are a leader encouraging teams to maintain focus is also critical.

Here are 3 ideas to help you and your teams maintain focus during extraordinary distractions.

1. Two buckets

Imagine two empty buckets. The first bucket is labeled “in my control.” The second bucket is labeled “out of my control.” List out all the things that are weighing on your mind no matter how big or small. Begin to place those items one by one in the respective bucket. For the second bucket “out of control,” give it to God or set it aside depending on your beliefs. You can now focus on the first bucket with clarity and purpose.

2. Shut off the news, social media, emails

I was amazed at how much I got done when my network shut down and I had temporally no access to social media, internet, and emails. Make it a practice to temporally shut those distractions down. Schedule it and make sure you can give yourself peace time, thinking through things, or just enlightening yourself through reading books.

3. Team Regroup

While you may be seeing all these extraordinary events going on, so is your team. Are they showing signs of overwhelm, distractedness, or lowering productivity? Consider conducting regular regroup touch-based meetings. Work them to establish the two-bucket method to cutting through the distractions.

If frustrations are high, consider conducting a ventilation session. Make it safe for team members to express their frustration and get it out in the open to be safely addressed.

Extraordinary times require develop extraordinary mindset to overcome and accomplish what we set out to do.

By the way, whatever happened to the murder hornets?

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Tresha Moreland

Tresha Moreland is a 30-year organizational effectiveness and strategic workforce planning expert. She partners with business leaders to develop workplace strategies that achieve best-in-class results. She has held key organizational leadership roles in multiple industries such as manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality, and healthcare. Tresha is the founder and principal consultant of HR C-Suite, LLC (www.hrcsuite.com). HR C-Suite is a results-based HR strategy resource dedicated to connecting HR with business results. She has received a master’s degree in human resource management (MS) and a master’s degree in business administration (MBA). She has also earned a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), Six Sigma Black Belt Professional (SSBBP) Certification. She is also recognized as a Fellow with the American College Healthcare Executives with a FACHE designation.