“Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” — Adam Hochschild

Breakfast with Peter never fails to produce at least one insight.

Peter is a corporate communications specialist now writing a book on the subject. We meet for coffee now and then just to chat, and yesterday he left me with something to think about every time I go into a gym.

First he spoke about time management, and how important it is to do the most important thing first thing in the morning.

Then he went into detail on all the distractions that lurk when you try to do ANY task: Email. The morning papers. The urge just to get up and walk. On this particular day, he fought through the distractions and produced some good work.

His example can be your path to greatness. Just knowing about the distractions, and how many await, and being ready to fight through them, can make your tasks more productive.

In writing this piece, I’m working through a distraction of my own. The key for the letter ‘e‘ is not working properly. Since the letter ‘e‘ is the most frequently used letter in the English language, I hesitated to sit down and confront this annoyance.

But I used Peter’s formula — confront the most important task first thing in the morning, and be ready to fight through the distractions when you do so.