Hello, my cubicle confusers, open space side trackers, corner office orientors, home den distractors, and coffee shop confounders. My name is Brock Armstrong, and I am here, deep inside your ears, planting seeds of inspiration, to make you into a Workplace Hero. After you listen to enough of these podcast, I hope to replace the voice of your conscience - “put down that donut and get back to work - when was the last time you got up from your desk - do you really need to be looking at Facebook right now - always take the stairs.” Is that creepy? Maybe a little… anyway…

In her book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp said that “Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.” and I agree. It’s when you can truly shut out the world and focus on a problem that the complexity and confusion often falls away.

Let’s face it, everything demands our attention these days. It’s not just our family, friends and co-workers but also our phones, our email and our social media that all fight for our attention at any given moment. It can be downright overwhelming at times and makes it really challenging to get focussed and get a job done.

Yeah, I know that every generation thinks the one immediately following it is doomed but the cost of these now ingrained distractions to our personal and professional life is well documented. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine found that it takes a typical office worker 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption, and an experiment by the authors of The Plateau Effect: Getting from Stuck to Success found that interruptions decreased work accuracy by a whopping 20%. So, I am not just Grandpa Simpson shaking my fist at a cloud or telling those kids to get off my lawn - being chronically distracted is an actual problem.

Before I continue, let me interrupt you for a second… heh…

I want encourage you to sign up for the Workplace Hero email newsletter over at workplacehero.me. The sign up form is on the righthand side of the page. Please know that because I believe strongly in the idea of Inbox Zero, you will only receive an email once per week, and it will be short, to the point and easy to delete. Best of all, just for signing up, you will receive a coupon code for 10% off at the online health and fitness store, GreenfieldFitnessSystems.com. Over there they have a huge array of supplements, gear, plans, coaches and clothing that will help keep you healthy and fit. So sign up for the newsletter at workplacehero.me and get your discount code for GreenfieldFitnessSystems.com now.

Ok, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, distractions!

Over at becomingminimailst.com that have a list of 10 unconventional habits that will help you live life with less distractions:

1. Turn off smart phone notifications. Our smart phones have quickly become one of the greatest sources of distraction in our lives. The average person now checks their mobile phone a hard to believe, 150 times every day (just short of every 6 waking minutes). To limit their distractive nature, turn off all notifications (Email, Facebook, Twitter, Games, even messages, etc.) as your own default setting. As a result, you will be able to check your apps on YOUR schedule at your appointed times throughout the day, not just whenever Aunt Mabel hits reply all on the brunch chain email.

2. Read/Answer email only twice each day. Ok, maybe three times a day. When we keep our email client open all day, we surrender our attention to the most recent bidder rather than the most important. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we understand why the habit of checking email only twice/day is promoted over and over again by some of the most productive people in our world today (Michael Hyatt, Scott Belsky, Tim Ferriss). Schedule your email processing and stick to that schedule. You will feel the benefits immediately.

3. Complete 1-2 minute projects immediately. Our lives and minds are often cluttered and distracted by the many unfinished projects around us (unanswered email, household chores, financial responsibilities). Fortunately, many of these projects can be completed in far less time than we think. To live with less distraction, if a project can be completed in less than 2 minutes, just stop and get ‘er done so you won’t think about it anymore.

4. Remove physical clutter. Unnecessary clutter is a significant form of visual distraction. Consider this: everything in our eyesight subtly pulls at our attention at least a little. And the more we remove, the less visual stress and distraction we experience. Clear your desk, your walls, your counters, your computer’s desktop, and even your home of unneeded possessions. You’ll love your newfound ability to focus.

5. Clear visible, distracting digital clutter. Just like physical clutter distracts our attention, digital clutter accomplishes the same. Desktop icons, open programs, multiple browser tabs, and other visible notifications all jockey for attention in our mind. Notice the digital triggers that grab your attention and then ruthlessly remove them. Spare no one!

6. Accept and accentuate your personal rhythms. Discover the rhythms of your day to make the most of them. For example, I do my best heads-down work in the morning, afternoons work well for meetings and physical work, and evenings are set aside for my me time—leaving late evenings for entertainment, chilling, and yes guilt-free distraction. Accepting and understanding our natural rhythms to the day/week provides healthy motivation to remove distractions during our most productive parts of the day knowing there is opportunity later to indulge them

7. Establish a healthy morning routine. Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The first hour is the rudder of the day.” He was absolutely right. Go to workplacehero.me/hardstuff to hear my take on how you should start your day. Basically, begin your days on your terms apart from distraction. If possible, I suggest that you wake first in your household. Drink your coffee or fix yourself a warm breakfast while you journal or read or simply enjoy the silence. Develop a distraction-free morning routine. It will lay the foundation for a less-distracted day.

8. Cancel cable / Unplug television. If you haven’t already cut the cord, it is difficult to argue against the distracting nature of our television. Researchers tell us the average American watches 37-40 hours of television each week. There is, of course, a solution to this madness: unplug your television completely. Or at least do what I do, put the TV away (behind the couch) every morning. But if this step seems too drastic a stretch for your family, you’ll never regret the simple decision to cancel cable. Your calendar will thank you for the extra time available. Your wallet will thank you for the extra dollars. And you’ll quickly wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

9. Keep a to-do list. One of the most helpful and practical podcasts I have ever released can be found at workplacehero.me/todo. No matter how hard you try to manage yourself, new responsibilities and opportunities will surface in your mind from internal and external sources. The opportunity to quickly write down the task allows it to be quickly discarded from your mind. I use the Notes app that comes installed on all my Apple devices for my To Do list so I can add to it anytime I want to. In bed, in a meeting, on a bus, anytime! That way I can get it out of my head and on to my list.

10. Care less what other people think. The value of your life is not measured by the number of likes your Facebook post receives or the number of positive comments on your Instagram pic. Please understand, there is great value in humbly seeking opinion and appreciating the wise counsel of those who love you. But there is no value in wasting mental energy over the nega...