I don’t know about you, but I like to learn new things.
When something comes along that I think might be valuable in my business or my clients’ businesses, I usually stop and have a look.
It can be a new tool for organization or collaboration … something that maybe will help us automate something a little bit better … or maybe it’s just something cool.
If I am really conscious of what I am doing, I can figure out when would be a good time to check something out in more detail. But sometimes … okay most of the time … I am not that present … and I become the victim of Shiny Object Syndrome.
You know what I mean. Getting distracted from what you ‘should’ be doing by something that seems more interesting at the moment.
Shiny Object Syndrome is that thing that many of us techy types have – when you are online as much as we are, you will inevitably be presented with multiple opportunities to get distracted by something that is new and interesting.
There is just one key to dealing with it … scheduling.
Keep a notebook or notepad nearby your desk. When you find something that you think might be interesting for you or your clients, make a note of it. If you use bookmarks in your browser, make a ‘research’ folder and save the URL for the new and interesting thing’s website there.
Then schedule time to go back and look at it.
The distraction can be limited simply by identifying that ‘now’ is not the right time to look at something, simply because it’s on your computer screen.
You will actually be more productive by setting aside some time to look at more than one cool thing at a time. Research time.
Lately I have found some neat things online that are on my Research time in my calendar. I look forward to sharing the details of those with you in upcoming newsletters.
For this week, I was presented Evergreen Business Systems (www.theautomatedwebinar.com) It’s a webinar presentation system that allows you to set up pre-recorded webinars that people can view on ‘autopilot’ on any schedule that you set. It’s a great tool that I am looking at not only for my own teaching, but for my clients as well. Not only can you do pre-scheduling of your playbacks, but there are countless other features that also come with the system for setting up registration pages, integrating with email service providers, and so much more. Super cool system and I am definitely going to be making notes on this one (and comparing them to other similar systems out there too!)
I’d love to hear your comments on this article!
Hi Tracey!
I’ve definitely been the victim of Shiny Object Syndrome! It wasn’t until I realized that I had to do what you suggested above in order to stay productive. I keep a notebook of ideas and things I’d like to investigate. Then I look into them during scheduled R&D time on my calendar. That whole process was easier said than done.
Before I used this new system two things would usually happen:
1. I would click on an e-mail that contained something I found interesting during my workday. That would lead to looking at lots of other things during time that I had scheduled for something else.
2. I would book most of my time for client work and never make real time for me to investigate these new things.
So glad I have a system now! I do like the idea you had of adding a folder called “research” to your bookmarks. That will make things easier!
Hey Alicia,
That’s great – isn’t it amazing what one little thing like that can do to boost your productivity? I also find it’s help me keep my surfing more organized – by writing it down I don’t forget the things I wanted to check out – and then when you’ve done your research you can clear your mind and your bookmarks and move onto something else! 🙂 Thanks for sharing! ~ Tracey
Comments are closed.