{"id":214,"date":"2014-07-30T07:50:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T11:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imnodummy.com\/blog\/?p=214"},"modified":"2014-07-29T15:32:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T19:32:18","slug":"put-down-the-duckie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/put-down-the-duckie\/","title":{"rendered":"Put Down the Duckie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you as big a fan of classic Sesame Street as I am? So much wisdom. One of my favorites is from a holiday special that was done many years ago. The segment is called, “Put Down the Duckie”.<\/p>\n

\"PutDownTheDuckie\"<\/a>
Click the photo to play the video<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this sketch, Ernie learns the importance of focusing on the task at hand – in this case, learning to play the saxophone.<\/p>\n

This song jumped to mind recently while talking with a friend about my own lack of focus on any given task. As I have been analyzing my increasing sense of never getting anything done, I realized just how many distractions have crept into my life.<\/p>\n

When I was a software engineer, banging out code, I would sit myself down at the computer, heads down, for hours at a time. If there were too many distractions around me, either from noise in the hallway or the noise in my own head, I would put on headphones with specific types of music to allow me to regain that intense focus on the job at hand.<\/p>\n

It is a sign of my age that I remember when checking email required a deliberate action. I remember the first time I encountered a computer workstation that had email running constantly. Even then I realized the folly of having a window pop up to announce you had new mail. My first thought was, “I don’t care. I’ll get to that later. Stop interrupting me. How do you turn that off?”<\/p>\n

Now, we all have cell phones, tablets, and myriad devices that bleep, bonk, and vibrate their way into our days with their constant interruptions.<\/p>\n

Enough! Do yourself a favor. Turn off every alert on your mobile device that is not absolutely mission critical. Close that Facebook browser window. Turn off the tweets. Do it now.<\/p>\n

It’s amazing how much productivity and serenity can be gained by blocking out chunks of time to devote to specific tasks. While you’re at it, block out a specific time to check your email and other means of communication. When the time is up, get on to the next task.<\/p>\n

Put down the duckie \/ cell phone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you as big a fan of classic Sesame Street as I am? So much wisdom. One of my favorites is from a holiday special that was done many years ago. The segment is called, “Put Down the Duckie”. In this sketch, Ernie learns the importance of focusing on the task at hand – in … Continue reading Put Down the Duckie<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}