Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the San Antonio airport waiting for a flight out for a business trip. I found myself thumbing through Facebook and the “my child almost drowned because I’m too distracted” headline practically jumped out of the phone. I clicked through to the post on Scary Mommy and proceeded to read, my jaw dropping open the further I read. And my heart sinking, and once I reached the end of the story, it melted into a puddle of guilt.
The story was about a mom who put her very cranky and overly exhausted 4 year old into the bathtub, then left to get something and checked her email while she was moving from place to place. She stopped to answer the email, delaying her return to the bathroom by 2 minutes. To her horror, her child had fallen asleep in the bathtub in that 2 minutes and could have drowned.
I am just as distracted. I am just like that mom.
Trying to keep up with my work – both online and offline – desperately trying to give my undivided attention to both.
Of course, I am reading this article and lost in my own mess of distracted living while my 9 month old baby crawls around the airport floor and plays the drums on the airport windows. (Don’t worry…I was paying close attention to him, had already surveyed the area for tiny “put in your mouth” objects, and planted us in a (relatively) clean and unused gate/area of the airport.
Distracted. Sorta.
I vowed to turn off my phone and stop reading my Facebook feed and instead delight in this young child who had the pleasure of traveling with me across the country. I vowed to be with him. I vowed to be more present with my children when I returned home. I vowed to not check my email during homework hours, just to see if there were any urgent tasks that needed attending. (I can’t attend to them during homework time, so why bother checking.) I vowed to be more focused on the task in front of me and to stop multitasking.
This distracted living thing applies to more than to the whole work-kids balance thing. This applies to my business as well. And my marriage.
I vowed to run a less distracted business. There are so many distractions (social media sites) that I use each and every day to help my business (content marketing!), but I know that I could be more focused as I work within each one.
While this isn’t the most tactical note, I encourage you to take note of the times of day that you are most distracted and work on strategies and solutions that will help you focus on your family and your business.
Are you distracted? What measures can you take, what goals can you set this week to be less distracted?
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