Distractions occur frequently throughout the workplace, especially with the amount of information and communication we are subject to on a daily basis. Distractions do not have to be major or happen multiple times to throw you from your schedule. Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of Your Erroneous Zones, Pulling Your Own Strings, and a variety of other self-help books, recalls an instance when he was tranquilly looking out at the scenery, when a gentleman on the next property began cutting the lawn using a power mower that had a particularly wicked sounding engine noise. Each time the power mower came to the corner of the yard closest to where Dyer was sitting, he became upset. The noise was disrupting his quiet contemplation.

After a while, however, Dyer managed to incorporate the noise of the mower as a part of his environment. It no longer was a distraction, nor did it diminish his feelings of tranquility. How did he get to this hallowed state? He accepted that people cutting grass is part of the overall environment and that there was a rhythm and hum to the power mower, much like that of a gurgling brook or other phenomenon of nature.

In a second scenario, Dyer recalls when he was on a plane and one gentleman began coughing and hacking. Not just a normal cough and hack, mind you, but a loud, prolonged, overly pronounced vocal gesture that made it seem as if this gentleman wanted everyone on the plane to notice him. Many people were reading, others were resting, some amicably chatting.

At first, Dyer found this man to be a nuisance. Presumably, many of the other passengers felt the same way. Again, after a few minutes of this, Dyer was able to mentally shift his assessment of the situation and no longer regard the gentleman's pronounced quest for attention as disruptive.

If you're trying to read, and somebody three rows back in the airplane is coughing, and you're dreading the next time he or she is about to cough, sure enough, you won't get any reading done. Alternatively, if you accept that coughs do occur--even loud, obnoxious coughs--and continue your focus on the task at hand, guess what. More often than not, the potential distraction diminishes, sometimes to the wonderful point where you're not even thinking about it.

I Do So Affirm

You can use affirmations to creatively employ potential distractions as triggers to help you concentrate more deeply. Suppose you're in your office, and in the office suite upstairs from you, someone is banging on the wall a couple of times every three or four minutes. Obviously, some type of equipment installation or office renovation is going on. How do you take such potential disruption and turn it to your favor? Mentally, you say to yourself that "With each bang on the wall or screech, I will become even more focused on the task at hand."

Thereafter, with each bang on the wall, you allow your concentration on your project to get more focused and more intense. This won't happen automatically. At first, each outside disturbance will continue to seem as if it's a disturbance. You'll hear each one, and think to yourself how is this helping me? If you stick with the process; however, miraculously, subsequent incidences begin to diminish in amplitude and seemingly, frequency.

If you get really good at this process, after a while, you won't even "hear" the external noise. This is analogous to people who buy property under the flight path of a major airport. How could they possibly live with planes flying overhead all day long? After a few weeks, and in some cases, a few days, the noise of the flights overhead become part of the overall environment. Neither disruptive, nor stress inducing, nor particularly worth noting.

[Note: This is not to say that all background and environmental noise eventually becomes benign. Indeed, the decibel level of a particular noise, or of noise, in general, can be debilitating.]

The Sacred Hoops Approach

With the success of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association in the 1990's, the coaching methods and philosophies of Phil Jackson have become of interest to many people, not only basketball fans. Jackson's book, Sacred Hoops, discusses his approach to the game and to life in general.

"Basketball is a game, a journey, a dance. I emphasize to the players that when they work together, good things happen." The press noted that Jackson has been meditating for more than 20 years. "One reason I like Zen is that it is a process of becoming alert, awake, and aware. My coaching revolves around alertness. Basketball requires shifting from one objective to another at lightening speed. To excel, you need to act with a clear mind and be totally focused. The secret is not thinking. This means quieting the endless jabbering of thoughts so your body can act instinctively."

When you're thinking about external disruptions, it's not likely that you're going to be productive. When your focus is on what you're trying to accomplish, the disruptions simply can't have the same impact.

What happens when Jackson encounters a particularly intense moment? "Basketball, like golf, is a game in which you can do a tremendous amount of self-abuse over errors and ruin a nice day, and in the process, probably cause your team to lose. No one plays this or any game perfectly. It's the guy who recovers from his mistakes who wins." Similarly, your ability to recover from interruptions, distractions, and all of the other malarkey that goes on in the contemporary office will enable you to get more work done each day, feel less stress, and feel better about the whole deal.

How Do You Spell Relief?

Here are a variety of other short-term maneuvers which may bring relief:

* Take a walk -- whatever is distracting you may be gone by the time you return, or if that is not the case, perhaps it'll be less of a distraction.

* Become the master of your own environment, using actual tools for controlling the noise all around you, such as earplugs, verse noise, headphones, and white noisers.

* Use the machine hum of a fan, air conditioning system, or office equipment to help serve as a noise mask.

* Continually look for distraction-free sanctuaries, wherever they may be. This could include the lunchroom after the line closes down, the chairs right outside of your building's lobby, or a rooftop overlook.

* Coach others to support you in your quest.

Jeff Davidson is "The Work-Life Balance Expert®," is a preeminent time management authority, has written 56 mainstream books, and is an electrifying professional speaker, nearly 800 presentations since 1985 to clients such as Kaiser Permanente, IBM, American Express, Lufthansa, Swissotel, America Online, Re/Max, USAA, Worthington Steel, and the World Bank. Jeff is Executive Director of the Breathing Space? Institute; a popular speaker; and the author of numerous books, including:

• Simpler Living (Skyhorse Publishing)
• The 60 Second Innovator (Adams Media)
• Breathing Space (MasterMedia)
• Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time (Alpha/Penguin)

Jeff has been widely quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and USA Today. Cited by Sharing Ideas Magazine as a "Consummate Speaker," Jeff believes that career professionals today in all industries have a responsibility to achieve their own sense of work-life balance, and he supports that quest through his websites www.BreathingSpace.com and www.Work-LifeBalance.net and through 24 iPhone Apps at www.itunes.com/BreathingSpaceInstitute.