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If you open your phone every time a notification comes up, this one is for you.

Distraction is the enemy of success. I have said it once and I will say it as many times I have to. Getting distracted is the easiest thing to do yet one of the most difficult to overcome. Ting se aaya notification aur khul gya Instagram. And then you forget how seconds change to minutes and minutes to hours. But it is completely fine. Everyone has to deal with distractions, even me. That is why I am going to talk about ways to minimize the distractions in your life in this newsletter issue.

Stay in good company

Birds of a feather flock together. There's a reason behind this saying and it holds to a very large extent. If you are a part of a group that parties all the time and stays involved in other unuseful things, you know where you are headed to. If you are a part of a group that focuses on work and upskilling, you can again understand where you are headed to. So ensure that you are a part of a circle that works and thinks about growth.

I have talked about this very point in a lot more detail in a previous newsletter which you can find here: One advice for all programmers.

Work in teams

Accountability. When you are accountable to someone who is working along with you, you make sure that you finish the job. You do not want to let your team or co-workers down and that will push you to complete the task before reaching the deadline.

Block social media usage

There are multiple apps on the play store or apple store that can be used to reduce social media notifications and the time spent on them. Indeed, the huge increase in the popularity of social media platforms and the FOMO created out of it is a major distraction, if not the biggest. I am not saying that you quit all social media because that will hamper you and disconnect you from the world, especially after things have gone remote. (And you will miss out on all of my content as well. Just saying.) I am asking you to limit it to certain hours of the day.

Understanding the lizard brain technique

Human brains have been built for fight or flight. The brain always tries to conserve energy and does not believe in doing any task until necessary. That's just nature. Do you ever feel lazy the day before an exam? Do you feel like taking a long nap two days before the deadline? No. So you can train your brain by doing bits and pieces of the job every single day rather than taking it up all at once. This way you keep making progress and you can finish your job long before the deadline.

Ending Notes

I just want to reiterate the point that do not criticize yourself if you get distracted very often. It is natural and in all honesty, expected of someone in their teens and twenties. Try out the methods above and find out what works best for you. This is not all. There are other techniques like the Pomodoro technique that have helped quite a lot of people. You can check those out and find something suitable.

Before we bid our goodbyes, let us do the usual dance. Subscribe to the newsletters at

and share them with your friends and family. Trust me, the newsletters do not count as a distraction.

P.S. Have you checked out my book "The Productive Professional" yet? It is now available on Wyzr and talks about distraction in a lot more detail. Not something you would want to miss out on!