How To Combat Internal Interruptions

Have you ever had a day when you just couldn’t concentrate? You might want to get down to a task, and even start it, just to be pulled off by thoughts and reminders your own brain is throwing at you.

I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I have had random thoughts intrude. I’ve been teaching a class and my mind will remind me that we need dishwasher soap. Or I’ll be driving doing errands and my mind will remind me that I need to sew a button back on a sweater at home.

It’s distracting in the first place. Even worse is when I don’t acknowledge the thought, and then it keeps popping back up.

The only way I have found to combat this is to make an interruption list.

The Interruption List

An interruption list is merely a way to capture all these interruptions and get them out of the way so we can get to the task at hand.

A thought pops up, you write it down and get back to what you were doing.

It doesn’t matter what you use to keep the list. Phone, paper, sticky notes, backs of receipts, writing on your hand…they’ll all work.

As long as you don’t let the tasks languish there.

What To Do With An Interruption List

Once you have the tasks, you will need to do something with them. Ideally, you will put them into your task list so that they may be done at an appropriate time.

Without this processing, though, your mind will continue to interrupt you with these random thoughts. When it knows that you will take care of them, it will cease reminding you (at least about the issue at hand).

Conclusion

Using an interruption list is a good way to get past internal interruptions.

Over To You

Do you have other methods that you use to get past internal interruptions? Leave a comment below.

Image by aturkus. Licensed under Creative Commons. Text added.