Avoiding distractions

It should be obvious, but distractions are a hell of a productivity killer.

Sometimes I wonder how much more I could get done without being distracted, but alas it only remains a figment of my imagination. I have, for the time being, come to accept my fate for now and instead keep a list of a few things that I need to get done everyday. So long as I get the important things done, anything else I get done is icing on the cake.

The key to success is keeping expectations low?

I would have to disagree with that as some of my most productive and driven times are when there are things that I really want to do. Another way of describing it is "having the right motivation." Where does motivation come from, I do not know. There are times when I have been highly motivated and I would stop at nothing to get something done and there are other times where I could care less. The fickleness of human emotions defies my logical thought.

I used to run on the assumption that as long as I saw a logical reason to doing something then I would have no good reason to no do something. Unfortunately, the human body doesn't work like that. Why is it sometimes that the right thing and the hard thing the same thing? I wake up at 7 am and I know that I probably should get out of bed and do something productive, instead I lie awake until about 8:15 instead. But I think I am straying away from the topic... now what was it... oh yeah, avoiding distractions.

How to not be distracted

The only easy answer I've been able to figure out for my case is simply to not be at home nor at work. As long as I am away from familiar territory, my productivity shoots up like mad. I could probably live traveling through hostel to hostel and spend the days checking out interesting places and then come back and spend hours writing up about the interesting things I've done. I could probably live away in a garage surrounded with cool tools to play with and would probably end up spending hours building something.

Being somewhere comfortable is probably the biggest hindrance to me, simply just because I know how to distract myself in comfortable situations compared to when I am away and need to get things done.

The question is how to bring those qualities into my everyday life.... something I need to figure out.