So I?m not ADHD (thank goodness.)? But sometimes I feel like it, as an entrepreneur!

Email is blinking at me, I?ve got 76 social notifications, my slack channel is blowing up with my team asking questions, and my phone messages keep coming in. (How DO those spammers get my phone number, anyway…)

So I?m not ADHD (thank goodness.)? But sometimes I feel like it, as an entrepreneur!

Email is blinking at me, I?ve got 76 social notifications, my slack channel is blowing up with my team asking questions, and my phone messages keep coming in. (How DO those spammers get my phone number, anyway…)

You, too?

I knew I needed to reduce the overwhelm, so I searched for the best hacks. My favorite 5 hacks are here for you:

Hack 1: Notification Diet

Notifications are energy-vampires. People can be energy vampires too, but are you a slave to the little light that says ?you?ve got MAIL!? or learning that someone on Facebook has just changed their profile pic (now THAT?s newsworthy?)?

Each one of these distractions claims a little bit of your time and energy. And usually, our addiction to these blinking demons is based on one of two things:

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)? – this is the idea that the biggest, coolest thing in the universe is about to happen, and because I didn?t check my social feed for 45 minutes I?m going to miss it. Completely.

Disaster Alert – especially when you?re building a business and things are hard, you tend to become hyper-focused on ?what if something goes wrong?? This can cause you to check on emails, messages, and notifications all the time.

The Notification Diet isn?t that you go off this information completely. Think of it as intermittent fasting – you turn off your notifications so they aren?t flying into your desktop, and then you check things at a scheduled time. Your schedule, not theirs.

Hack 2: The Power Appointment

Appointments with myself are sacred, and should be short. I found that when I scheduled 8 hours to work on something, I booked in lots of other stuff because ?I can do it in less than 8 hours? or ?I can squeeze in this other thing too.?

Now, when I make an appointment with myself, it?s 30 minutes – an hour, tops. And I treat it the same way that I would treat an appointment with a cherished client. I show up, ready to work, present, and not with distractions visible.

Tip for this: It helps when you break down what you?re working on for the appointment. Don?t schedule time to ?work on book? but schedule ?outline chapter 1? or ?write 10 ideas I want to be sure to include.?

Hack 3: Thinking Time Energy Boost

Entrepreneurs usually spend too much time putting out fires, and not enough in fire-prevention.

Thinking time is time I spend with a notebook or journal, with my computer closed. The question I usually ask myself is ?what?s the thing that I most need to work on today?? Sometimes I?ll ask myself a specific question like ?what are all the ways that I can think of to accomplish ______ goal???

When I?m staring at a blank page, it?s permission to go deep. I may go off into a rabbit hole, but I won?t be distracted by emails when the thinking gets tough. And when you?re focusing on preventing emergencies in your business, it takes deep, tough thinking. Give yourself the energy boost of spending time with this (see #2, the Power Appointment.) I recommend a minimum of an hour a week, and you can work your way up to an hour a day.

Hack 4: Conscious Decluttering

Clutter doesn?t just mean sheets of paper, and stacks of mail.?

Clutter is anything that distracts you from what you?re doing. Here are some of my ?clutter? issues:

Food: I can?t think with food on my desk, or in my field of vision. I tell myself it?s a primal thing, but whatever it is, it has to go.

Noise: I know that there are people who can work in crowded coffee shops and with conversations going on in the background, but I?m not one of them. If you?re not, either, invest in a great pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and get the white-noise going.

Hack 5: Strategic Plan Z

Another distraction for me is when I?m trying to solve a problem but don?t have all the information yet. I?m waiting on feedback from a team member, a client, a vendor? And so my mind tried to come up with alternatives for every scenario. VERY distracting!

One way to solve this is to give in (for no more than 5 minutes!) and make a list of the different ways you?ll solve the problem. If someone says this, you?ll do that??

This is similar to another one of my favorite hacks, the ?brain dump? list. Getting everything out of your head and onto a piece of paper is a great way to free up mental space to work on your business. You can read the list, and delegate later? for now, brain dump and move on.

Don?t try to implement all of these hacks at once. Choose one, and try it for a week.

Which one will YOU try this week?