Selective Ignoring Is a Vital Skill to Master in a Hyper-Connected World

In an information-rich world, learning what to ignore is key to productivity.

Today, more than ever, it’s almost as if technology companies are conspiring to make us less productive. If you work in an office environment, you know how distracting coworkers or noise from adjacent offices can be.

You also know how easy it is for a meeting about one thing to go off on tangents about something completely different.

In fact, staying productive at work has become one of the most difficult challenges workers face every day.

If you are a digital worker, you have more demands on your time and attention than ever before. With so many options for spending your time, how can you stay productive on a day-to-day basis?

Selective ignoring means choosing what you will and won’t see. It also means you deliberately choose not to see something or bring something to your attention. This might feel like it defeats the purpose, but it brings back balance to your life.

It may sound counterintuitive, but actively avoiding distractions can actually help you be more productive and focused throughout the day.

To increase productivity at work or home, make selective ignoring a productive lifestyle.

Instead of aiming to do all or most things every day, take a productive pause the night before and choose what deserves your attention the night before and strickly focus on them the next day.

Selective ignoring is a beneficial technique for managing information overload. It takes the stress from being overwhelmed by information and helps you get things done.

The world is full of distractions — some of which are important, and some aren’t. Selective ignoring is about focusing on the things that matter most and blocking out the noise.

Selective ignoring isn’t about being rude or arrogant; it’s about making rational choices about when and where to focus your attention.

“Actively ignoring things and saying no to people generates a range of emotions that exert a powerful influence on our choices and behavior,” says Ed Batista of Harvard Business Review.

It’s not easy to ignore things especially when it’s an important task or something that needs your undivided attention.

However, selective ignoring will allow you to do what needs to be done while ignoring other distractions like urgent but unimportant notifications, emails, tasks from colleagues or demands on your time from other people.

Let’s say you have a lot of tasks pending, and there are so many of them that it takes away your focus from the task at hand.

To get things done, you need to develop selective ignoring skills so that you can focus on what needs to be done right now and ignore everything else until later on.

In today’s fast-paced world of technology, no matter how hard you try to stay focused, something always comes up to throw you off track:

whether it’s an unexpected meeting, an unending stream of emails, or even a noisy coworker at the next desk.

The good news is you can do something about it. You can make an intentional decision to ignore everything that takes you away from focused work. It’s a powerful tool for getting things done.

In a highly distracting world, the most productive people know what to ignore

“Focus on doing the right things instead of a bunch of things.” — Mike Krieger

To effectively practice selective ignoring, prioritise your tasks according to their importance to your long term goal.

Start your day with a daily to-do list and group your tasks in order of importance. And once you’ve decided to get started, block off all distractions and ignore them until your deep work session is over.

The overwhelming demand on our limited time means selective ignoring is now more critical than ever.

Not everything requires your immediate attention. The only way to make real progress is to actively ignore things, tasks or responsibilities that are not on your to-do list for the day.

Better control over your time, tasks, emails, meetings, conversations, and colleagues’ many demands is the only way to do more great work.

Selective ignoring is a better way to improve your focus.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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