Did you know that the average person endures 50-60 distractions within a single work day?
This weekend it occurred to me that every year I post content on New Year’s Day hoping to help set the tone for the year, but that I never actually circle back to check in with my readers. This led me to the sad truth that we don’t often check in with ourselves.
The very same day my best friend made the statement, “it is as if I went into a trance…I honestly cannot tell you what happened”. It sounds so disturbing to be able to look back over a week, month, year, of your life and not remember the types of details that you would never expect anyone to forget. But honestly, some people can’t clearly remember yesterday!
This time last year I posted a piece called Remembering our Resolutions in which I implored my followers to remember that we will never see the same day twice.
Every year people make New Year's Resolutions and Vision Boards and 6, 12, 24, 52 weeks later, they find themselves right back where they started, not because there's anything wrong with resolutions or vision boards, but because there is no true resolve to make good on promises to ourselves. We operate in a constant state of distraction.
Look at the statistic above; 50-60 distractions within a single work day. Fifty distractions is equivalent to a single distraction every 9.6 minutes, when statistics show that any major distraction requires an average 23 minutes to regain focus. This means the average persons’ work day is riddled with interference. So much so, that in 2024 TeamStage Project Management reported that companies lose out on 720 hours a year per person working. Seven hundred and twenty hours!! With the standard 40-hour work week totaling 2080 hours per annum, NOT including time off, that means only 2/3 of the average employee work day is spent focused and on-task.
So, take this concept out of the office and apply it to your everyday life wherein you have work, kids, spouse, family, health, hobbies, friends, etc.…how can we ever get anything done if we don’t focus?
Everyone loves to quote the Bible out of content, and this often includes Habakkuk 2:2. You always hear write the vision and make it plain…
What you don’t often hear is the part where Habakkuk 2:3 says,
A vision without action is merely a thought, and no thought can stand up to the level of distraction in our lives.
I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I do believe in progress…change, and change doesn’t happen without work. So, this year, instead of setting a resolution and hoping it comes to true, write it down, take small, active steps, and CHECK IN WITH YOURSELF knowing that at the appointed time, it will indeed come true. If you get distracted, that’s okay, return to your vision. Instead of bouncing from one thing to another and letting more time pass without progress, let’s keep the main thing, the main thing and take this journey one day at a time.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
#2025
