“Laser focus!”

“Mindfulness!”

“Intentionality!”

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Amaka planted her butt on the chair, feeling energized and determined not to get up until the day’s work was done. She had gotten up early, and gotten through his morning ritual of workout, visualization, contemplation and a big yummy breakfast.
She sat down, fresh out of the shower, ready to kick ass and hit her goals.

They say that it takes three weeks to build up a habit and stick with it. Well, Amaka discovered that’s not the case. For her, it took at least 90 days to make something permanent.

Today she had reached that milestone. After three months, today, her mind and body would lock in the habit of daily journaling and keep it with her for the rest of her life.

Alright, she thought to himself, stretching her fingers as the computer powered up. If I win today, I win all days.
With a smile and a water drop falling from her still-moist hair, Amaka opened the document she been writing and put on some inspiring music to let her fingers dance on the keyboard.
It felt great. Wide awake and energized from the exercise and the quick shower, he was doing what he wanted most.

All before the rest of the world even woke up. He had two solid hours to do his writing, before he’d have to drive to work.

No exceptions. No excuses. She muttered…

The phone vibrated.
Damn! she thought, concentration slipping for a moment. "I forgot to put it on airplane mode."
Her eyes automatically glanced at the phone, diligently trained over the years to respond immediately. Just before the screen darkened, she could see a message from her friend Funmi, asking if would want to go the movies.

The movies? When? Amaka wanted to reach for the phone, and then she remembered - no distractions.
She quickly put her phone on airplane mode then switched to hit her target for the day.

After she was done, she checked the phone. Funmi was asking her to go to the movies after work. The message said that the girls all agreed to go, and since it was Friday, they’d hit a birthday badge.
"I should go" Amaka thought. I should celebrate my victory.
She almost started typing a confirmation, when she remembered. I have to edit what I wrote. Then I have to plan for what I’m going to write next. Also, if I want to keep the habit, I need to wake early…

With some reluctance, she wrote to Funmi that she couldn’t make it. She had to work on her writing - and couldn’t stop now, not when she was so close to making it a habit.

“Sorry my man,” he mumbled as he wrote the reply. “I’ll give you a signed copy of my autobiography to make it up to you.”

Feeling like a boss, Amaka left her apartment and drove to work.

The average person is distracted or interrupted every 40 seconds when working in front of their computer. In other words, we can’t work for even a single minute before we focus on something else. Sure, sometimes it’s easy to get back on track. But when our attention is completely derailed, research shows, it can take more than 20 minutes to refocus.

Like Amaka, Create a distraction-free ritual, like freezing your unrestful applications, Set three daily intentions, for example, finish a draft of this article, read two chapters of a book, and take your affirmations. In addition, Work on more tasking work and set artificial deadlines for yourself.

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You cannot do big things if you're distracted by small things…

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