How I Eliminate Distractions, Stay Focused & Productive (as a Nomadic Entrepreneur)

Productivity

How do you eliminate distractions to stay focused, and productive to get things done while working from home or while you roam? Running my online business, especially as an entrepreneur and digital nomad on the move, I’m in ever-changing environments where I cannot always control what’s going on around me. And, since I’ve already dealt with a few distractions and it’s only 9:00 Am today, I wanted to respond to a topic I often get asked about which is: “How I eliminate distractions so I can get things done!”

I can’t tell you how many distractions I deal with as an entrepreneur, especially working from home or while I roam. If I’m at a hotel or an Airbnb in the RV at the trailer park, I get interrupted all during the day and night! It could be the dogs, my boyfriend, the phone ringing, social media notifications going off, you name it. All those little things distract me, interrupting my focus, eventually adding up and impacting my productivity!

Staying focused as a digital nomad means learning how to overcome distractions and sharpening your time management skills! So if you are struggling with how to stay focused or need some tips for eliminating distractions this is for you! These are my secret weapons for staying focused and productivity tips for digital nomads and entrepreneurs!

It Takes 23 Minutes to Regain Focus After a Distraction!

Did you know? It takes approximately 23 minutes or more to get back on track after someone interrupts you or something distracts you from what you’re doing. 

How do you deal with being productive and not letting these distractions interrupt your focus when you’re trying to make money online working from home or on the road? I wanted to go through how I eliminate distractions in my life and business! I know I struggle with eliminating distractions and I get a lot of questions about how I deal with them being a nomadic entrepreneur, digital nomad, dog mom, etc…

Because I have learned from experience Running my business online takes a lot of focus, strategic planning, and strategizing. So if you are thinking about becoming a digital nomad and a nomadic entrepreneur you should know distractions happen all the time. I was forced to learn how to eliminate distractions and stay focused on the task at hand!

Tips For Eliminating Distractions, Staying Focused & being EXTREMELY Productive

I made a list of ways I’ve been able to eliminate distractions because no matter where I’m at, my life is changing or the environment that I’m in is always changing. I cannot always control the environment that I’m in! For instance, when I was filming the video for this blog I couldn’t just lock my dogs up or put them outside the door to get things done because they would start barking, clawing, crying, and scratching to get in the door (they want to be beside their Mommy 😉

But, whether you have kids, dogs, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, moms, dads, or are in some other type of environment whatever it is, you will always have distractions! So how do I eliminate distractions in my life, work, and business throughout my day? Let’s dive into these tips for eliminating distractions…

  • Airplane mode on my phone! (Silent, Vibrate etc…)
  • Turning off Notifications on my phone! & Computer!
  • Unsubscribing from emails
  • No Noise, No TV, No Radio
  • Earplugs / EarPhones
  • Alone Time, any moment I get! 
  • Saying NO to people, places, parties, purchases, etc…

Putting My Phone on Airplane Mode

The first way that I eliminate distractions in my life and business is by putting my phone on airplane mode, so if I’m recording a video, writing a blog post, etc… My phone is in airplane mode. Plus, since I’m usually using my phone to record my YouTube videos, it allows me to not get notifications causing me to sit there looking at my phone saying, oh gosh, a notification went off, or, if someone’s texting/calling in, it doesn’t interrupt my video. 

Also if my phone notifications go off then I get another notification on my computer while I’m working and my watch starts going off too. This is why having my phone and any other devices on airplane mode helps me stay focused so I’m not hearing all the notifications going off. 

Putting my phone on silent or vibrate is also helpful to eliminate distractions and maintain focus. But I do find that on vibrate, you’ll hear it buzzing and silent you might still see the notifications. So if you do have your phone out, make sure you turn it around facedown or don’t look at it keep it away from you. 

Airplane mode helps me because I won’t get the notifications until I turn my phone back on (off of airplane mode). Sometimes I feel like I don’t get notifications when I turn it back on, I forget them or they don’t get to me or they are delayed. But hopefully, I pray all the important ones make it through!

Turning Off Notifications (on your phone)

The second way that I eliminate distractions in my life and work is by turning off notifications on my phone, computer, iPad, watch, etc… I can’t tell you how many times I used to get notifications from social media. Every like, comment, message, you name it I’ll get a Facebook notification and a Twitter notification, an Instagram, a YouTube comment, and an email over here then over there. Ding, ding, ding!

I turn off notifications on my phone, as well as my other devices, and pick a time once a day or once a week to respond to them. At times, people have said “Hey Brandi, I sent you something on social media” but it might be a few days, a week, or a month before I see it! I might not see it for a while, because I do not get notifications on my phone. My phone would go off all the time! In fact, it has, and still it does!

I’m constantly eliminating notifications aka distractions from my life to help me stay productive! But yes I have to go in and make sure that I turn those notifications off because if I don’t, then I will go crazy being distracted all day long. Plus, even if my phone was in airplane mode when I turned it back on, I’d have 5,000 notifications if I didn’t turn them all off!

Go into your settings on your phone, and turn off all your notifications that are not time-sensitive, or important! To turn them off depends on whether you have an Apple or an Android or whatever device you have, but you might have to go through each app and turn them off one by one individually. No matter how time-consuming it is, I am constantly turning off notifications on my phone, computer, watch, etc…

Another idea would be every time you see a notification go off remember to go turn that one off. More off a habit than a huge task!

Unsubscribing from Emails & Checking Emails Less Frequently

Another way that I eliminate distractions in my life, work, and business to get things done is by unsubscribing from emails, as well as, NOT checking emails all day long! I do not constantly check emails all day. I don’t always even check emails in the morning. I scan through my emails in the morning just to see if there’s an emergency or important email to come back to later on. I work best in the mornings and feel I need to use it on other task. Checking emails is a mindless activity to me which requires very little brain power aka energy!

I don’t typically respond to emails in the morning or if I do, I’ll schedule my response to go out later in the afternoon. This is so that I’m not getting a lot of communication coming back in immediately! Plus I don’t want somebody thinking that I’m sitting there in front of my desk working 24/7 trying to have a conversation back and forth. 

Scheduling emails to go out (including responses) and unsubscribing from emails coming in is helpful because if you get all these notifications all the time in your email inbox, it’s constantly distracting you hence making you crazy. It’s making you think, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta go look at all those emails. But one email turns into another one and then 20 minutes or an hour later you gotta get back to what you were on task originally supposed to be focused on doing again! 

You have to clean your email inboxes out and organize them! If you’re looking at this mountain of emails, thinking There’s just so much to do, then you’re honestly probably never going to look through them, and you may not ever clean them out. I would spend some time deleting, unsubscribing, and organizing your email inbox with folders and files to help categorize them. You can even set up filters in most email systems to filter messages and perform many tasks for you such as filing them away or creating an auto-responder, etc… 

Clean Out your inbox, but while you’re doing it, when you see emails coming through from the same people besides me Blogging Brandi, of course 😉 make sure that you start to unsubscribe from them. And that’s going to help not only clean out your inbox but keep you more productive because you are not going to have a whole bunch of other stuff that you’re distracted or overwhelmed by and looking through. 

Think about those emails that you know you have and think to yourself “I’m never gonna buy that thing. I’m never gonna click that thing.” Yet you are just looking at the email coming through every day. And it was probably something that you put in your cart online or you signed up to buy one time and now it just keeps on coming every day, reminding you to Buy me, buy me, buy me – make sure to unsubscribe from those emails and tidy up your inbox! That’s going to save you a lot of time and eliminate distractions throughout your day since you’re not going to have all those notifications. Turn notifications off, not only on your phone but make sure you do that on your desktop, social media, email inbox, and again on all your other devices too!

Eliminating Noise

Another way that I eliminate distractions in my work and life is noise. No noise, no TV, no radio. I eliminate noise in my life. I don’t watch the TV a whole lot anyways so this is not a problem for me. When I’m in the car, I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t like to have any noise going on when I’m working. I definitely do not want to have any noise going on when I’m recording a YouTube Video, but I really don’t like a lot of noise in my life period. I’m actually okay living my life in silence.

Plus, I love spending time alone. I made a video about how I love spending time alone in my RV on my RVersity YouTube Channel. One reason is because there is no noise! Not necessarily “no noise” at the RV park or when I’m traveling in the RV per se but no noise as far as other people to distract me inside the RV. Being alone allows me to avoid distractions!

Utilizing Alone Time

Another way to eliminate distractions is by being alone and Having alone time, that moment where I’m by myself and Nobody is around to distract me or tell me what to do, no one else to care for, etc. I work a lot on my computer but I also get a lot of work done on my phone. Sometimes I’ll go down to the gym to be by myself. Maybe I will be in the bathtub alone writing or researching on my phone. Sometimes I’ll just be alone! Right now I’m alone creating this! Nobody’s bothering me, so I can get things done!

I might also go hang out in my car. Just somewhere alone where no one is there to talk to me. I have also learned how to get many tasks done on my phone. Since I cannot always be around my computer or I might not have my computer with me. So I get things done on my phone and then I transfer it to my computer, or fix it later on my computer, depending on what it is. I will have it saved in my files or in one of the other “systems” I use to stay organized online. So get good at doing things on your phone, in uncomfortable environments, and at being comfortable alone. 

Making every “Mini Moment” count!

Any moment that I get, I try to get something done. If it’s making a note on my phone or if it’s just jotting something down real quick or making a quick blog post idea or putting the title out there, deleting a few emails, responding to a social media post, etc… I use those mini moments of time where I don’t have a distraction to get things done and stay productive. Even If it’s just five minutes to make a quick vlog, scan through my emails, or do something really fast, etc…

When I am somewhere where I am being distracted. Sometimes I will do things such as scanning through my emails since that is something I can sit there doing with very little brain power and still complete the task subconsciously: delete, unsubscribe, file, respond, flag for later, etc… without much “focus energy” needed. You have to learn how to balance your time when you are distracted and what you do with your time during those distracted moments. There are things that you could be doing all the time!

Using Earplugs and Earphones

Another thing I do to eliminate distractions in my life: earplugs and earphones. Earphones, I have AirPods because I’m an Apple user. I like to put them in so I can listen to what’s going on on the computer, edit a video, record on the phone, or have a conversation, and even if someone is around to bother me they help drown out the noise as they are also noise canceling Earphones. I also have some other types of noise-canceling Headphones. 

FYI I talked about all the Digital Essentials I use to run my business on the road, in a prior blog post/video!

The other item I keep on me is a pair of loop quiet Ear Plugs. They have different decibel levels, sizes, and colors, too but what I like about them is that they are just these little loops, you place them in your ear and they stay! Plus I have little ears, so I have to have things that stay in my ears almost like shopping for kids! But, just got the color I got because they were the only ones that were in stock and would come fast on Amazon Prime. (Amazon is where I SHOP for all the products that I use to stay sane while I’m working on the road and traveling) 

My RV Remote Work Setup & Must Haves for Digital Nomads!

Saying “NO”

Another way that I eliminate distractions, is by saying NO! Saying no to everyone else and Every other thing! No to people, no to places, no to parties, no to purchases, no to everything. How am I going to get things done and stay focused if I am giving all my time and energy away to everyone else? I can’t and Neither can you! 

Plus, once you become an entrepreneur and you start running your own business or working from home, start a side hustle, and have your own thing going on that becomes the thing that you wanna do. So Saying “NO” starts to become easy! It doesn’t make you feel as guilty!  

I used to feel guilty, I was a people pleaser and I told everybody, yes! But, now I’m the queen of NO. And I have a video that I made about that. If I haven’t made that yet, it’s coming out soon, which is why you need to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tap that little bell icon so you’re notified each and every time I publish a new video!

Saying No is easy for me because I don’t feel guilty anymore. I don’t let other people dictate my emotions and my feelings. Although yeah, sometimes they make me feel like, Ugh, maybe I should do this or that. But I will have to check myself. I’ll ask myself: “Okay, is there something I need to be doing? Do I really need to go to that party? Do I really need to go to that wedding, that baby shower, buy that thing…” 

Plus, having an RV, being out, gone, and traveling all the time, gives me an excuse to say NO, nope, sorry maybe next time! My usual response is “Oh, sorry, I’m not in town. Whoops!” lol 

Also sometimes I do NOT tell people that I’m in town or that I’m in my RV or wherever I’m at! One for safety reasons, but two, because I don’t really want people to be contacting me or trying to make plans with me. Or maybe I’m only in town for a day and I feel guilty because people want to hang out with me. So learning how to say NO to people is a great way to eliminate distractions! 

Tips for Eliminating Distractions & Staying Focused

  • Putting My Phone on Airplane Mode
  • Turning Off Notifications
  • Unsubscribing from Emails and Checking Emails Less Frequently
  • Eliminating Noise
  • Utilizing Alone Time
  • Making Every Mini Moment Count
  • Using Earplugs and Earphones
  • Saying No

These are just a few ways I eliminate distractions in my life and business but I wanna know how these resonated with you? How do you eliminate distractions? Please drop a comment below and let me know which one of these tips you are going to try? Which one of these works best for you? Or If there is something that I need to put on my list! Tell me how you eliminate distractions in your life,? I can’t wait to read your comments below! 

I’m so excited about this entire series. If you haven’t been following along, I’ve been cheering all my tips and tricks for working from home while you roam, becoming an entrepreneur, running your own business, and making money online on the road. You can binge-watch all my videos, as well as, be in the know by subscribing to my email list. That way you will be the first person notified when I’m not just making videos, but I’m posting blog posts! Plus, don’t forget to follow me and hang out on social media. Until the next time I’m Blogging Brandi, I love you. 

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Make sure that you start eliminating distractions in your life, staying focused and organized. And I’ll help you do that. Just be sure to like this video, subscribe, and turn on notifications. I’ll see you in the next one!

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