A new year is on its way. For many of us, this also means deadlines and general end-of-the-year crunch time. But with the holiday season afoot, it can be near impossible to focus on finishing up your work. Here at Clubhouse, we feel your pain; so we thought we’d share a few simple steps to squeeze the most focus possible from these last few days.
Interruptions, whether it’s a vibrating phone or a ping on Slack, jerk us out of flow state and keep us from being at our most productive. So the first thing we’re going to do is get rid of as many distractions as possible:
How to turn on Do Not Disturb in Slack
Of course, you will want to give people a heads up that you’re going dark — especially if they are used to you being “always on” and more responsive.
The best way to approach this is to frame it as a move you’re making for your productivity (“I’m doing this because I want to be able to meet or exceed our deadlines this week”) and give people an option for how to get in touch with you in an emergency. For example, you can tell them to send a notification through the DND mode on Slack, or allow for certain phone numbers to be sent through on your phone.
Now that all the usual distractions are out of your way, let’s make it even easier to focus:
You’ve managed to get all your work done before it’s family time! Now how do you resist the temptation to check your phone every ten minutes to make sure you aren’t missing anything?
Finally, if your team is on the lookout for a new project management tool to help keep everyone on track in the new year, check out Clubhouse!