Achieve greater consistency with these three tips

In today’s fast moving world, our attention is constantly being grabbed by email, messages, apps and that’s all before we even attempt to do anything productive, creative or effective!

So if we’re all at the mercy of so much constant digital distraction, how can you bring any sort of consistency into your day to day work?

Here are 3 tips to minimise the digital noise and bring better focus into your work or study.

1. Have a routine

What makes great sportsmen, musicians and chefs so consistently good? They all have a routine that they stick to every day, tried and tested through hours of practice, preparation and performance.

The great thing about having a daily routine or approach to work or study is that it allows you to regularly check that the foundations that you need to do your job or study effectively are in good shape (like a sportsman/woman warming up).  It also provides you with a framework on how to approach more challenging bits of work effectively (great musicians can play music they have never seen before at first sight, because of the groundwork they regularly put in place to achieve that).

If you don’t have a regular work/study routine, you risk never checking your foundations and taking short cuts to learning, which over time make it harder to maintain consistency (and in the long run, the less consistent you become, the more anxious about work you are likely to become too).

2. Put the digital white noise on standby 

Digital interference hits us not only from a variety of angles (e-mail. messaging, social media etc.) but also from a variety of devices (e.g. phones, laptops and tablets).

Without closing off all digital noise at certain times of the day, you risk always having the constant stimulus from technology in close proximity.  In turn, that stimulus can lead to you picking up a phone and checking social media, or having Outlook on and checking email every few minutes, even if you’re trying to get another piece of work done. The result – constant distraction.

The only real way of eliminating digital stimulus is to shut down programs/apps that create distraction or switch off devices and put them away.

Effecting a regular full digital shut down will help you to eliminate the ‘fear of missing something’. After all, technology often finds a way of that very thing you think you are missing out on, being there again the very next day anyway!

3. Use a bit of pen and paper

One of the major stumbling blocks to achieving greater consistency in the workplace is being able to develop and expand your own creative and critical thinking. Without this, thinking can quickly become stale, slow and cumbersome, making it harder to maintain consistent standards.

In a world that relies so heavily on powerpoint, email and written reports, it is so easy to become drowned in the typed word and to lose sight of what the real purpose, aim or vision of any idea, project or piece of work is.

However, by ditching the digital and reverting back to good old fashioned pen and paper to cultivate and share ideas, it provides you with a physical blank canvas on which you can explore your thinking by directly transmitting thoughts onto paper, whether through drawing, doodling and/or writing.

There is something about using pen and paper which really brings thinking and ideas to life. Perhaps it is the space away from a screen, but writing allows you to explore ideas without feeling self-conscious. Compare that to mapping out an idea on powerpoint or an email where it’s easy to get wrapped up in the perfection of correct spacing and formatting rather than focussing on developing quality thinking!

Combining words, pictures, shapes and colours on paper also allows you to be far more playful and to tap into more childlike creativity which helps you to explore ideas without self-judgment. In turn, that provides a much more organic and healthy way of thinking. It also allows you to work at a natural pace taking advantage of spurts of natural creativity along the way.

Why not give it a go?

So if you’re struggling with consistency or find it hard to concentrate on tasks at work or with study, try creating a daily routine which allows you to unplug from digital noise and get some blank paper and some pens and start scribbling down your ideas or working through your thinking away from a screen.

Not only will this bring greater consistency to the way that you approach your work or study, it might also boost your creativity and help you to become a much more effective thinker.