 Is your phone going off all the time, distracting you, keeping you from getting done the important things you need to do for your business? We can help today. We've got some strategies that'll get your phone working for you instead of you working for your phone. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. We live in a digital age. Our phones are going off all the time. There's not a whole lot we can do about that, but we can do some things to make sure that we're putting our attention in the right place at the right time. And last week we talked about other distractions that required some little bit different strategies that we'll talk about today. I think when you're dealing with your electronic devices, especially your phone, you need a few different strategies than what we talked about last week to keep your attention focused in the right place at the right time. And the conventional wisdom on digital device distraction is just shut it off. Just delete all your apps. Just get down to a bare phone. Go get yourself a flip phone. And that could be the right advice for you, but chances are if you're watching this, you've got a business or you're in a leadership position and you have apps on your phone where people are trying to engage with you. If a good part of your business is engaging with people on Facebook, whether that's customers or fans, people who are doing reviews for you or strategic partners, you need that phone. You need that electronic device to be communicating. And so what we're trying to do today is give you some strategies. You've got three strategies for you that will help you use your phone in a way where it's a tool for you and you don't feel like a slave to checking that phone all the time. Every time that little ding goes off or you see one of those little red dots, I hate those little red dots. So strategy number one, do an attention on it. Where does your attention need to be? Where is your attention currently at right now? What's the difference between them? I know I find myself checking my phone just to see what's there. Or if I hear a little ding go off, is it LinkedIn, is it Facebook? Because I communicate with my potential customers and my customers and my strategic partners on all those platforms as well. And I want to respond in a timely way. So it's not real helpful to just delete the app, but it is helpful to use the features that go along with those apps to make sure that the things that we want our attention on are the things that we get notified about. And that the things that, you know, someone liked our photo, or someone is inviting us to another event or to like another page, that those falls to the bottom of our attention list. And we don't necessarily get a ding or a red dot for those notifications. And I know these platforms to be a little bit of a labyrinth to navigate to try to figure out these options, but they're pretty much all in there. And you can do a pretty good job of using the features to elevate what you want to the top and to lower what is less important to you. And then you can get to all of that when you have time. But the first thing is really understand where your attention is going, and understand where your attention needs to be, and then use the features of those apps to shift that around for what you're getting notified about is where your attention needs to be. Strategy number two, make time and space. You've heard us talk a lot on this show about time management and tools for that. This is really very similar. Make that time. If you've got something you've got to concentrate on, make that time. This is where you can go turn the phone off, but do this at a time when people aren't trying to engage with you. Eight at night. That might be a great time to go concentrate on something. I know I'm not always thrilled about working on something at night, but it's a time I can concentrate and don't need to connect with someone else or very early in the morning. But make that time and make that space. Put that phone in the other room. Now I can't distract you at all. So this is an occasion. Make time and space. Actually, one of the things I do to make time and space is I turn my ring. When I go into a meeting, I turn my ringer off and I put my phone in my bag. Now I can't even see it. I don't even get a little flash on the screen. I can't even see it. And for the next 45 minutes, I am free and clear to focus my attention on the person I need to focus my attention on. And then when the meeting is over, I can pull that phone out and check it again immediately. So make some time and space. Use time and space to put that phone away when you really need to concentrate or give someone your full attention. And strategy number three, get some help. Delegate some of these things. Find someone. There are people you can hire to do your social media engagement for you or if you really like doing it, you can hire them to do the other things. But get some help. Use that time and space. Find someone who can help you with this and delegate that to them so that you can focus on running your business or doing the strategic things you need to do to get your organization to run. It's just like anything else. If it's taking up too much of your time and attention and you've got to focus elsewhere, find someone. Get some help. Even if it's a family member or a friend who can just check things for you and say, these are the three important things. The rest of these 12 things, they can wait. So those are your three strategies to help you put down your phone and get your phone working for you instead of you working for your phone. Remember, the features aren't enough. You've got to apply some strategy when you're using the phone, the features on the phone and these apps. So do that attention audit. See where your attention currently is and where your attention needs to be. Make that time and space. Put that phone as far away as it needs to be, whether that's 18 inches or in the other room at the right time so you can focus your attention on what and who you need to be focused on and three, get some help. There's plenty of people who can help you out there who, if this is really taking away from what you need to do, you can give them these tasks of these engagement using these phone apps or making phone calls or returning calls for you or answering messages for you. I hope this was helpful. If it was, please like, comment and share with a friend or a co-worker or someone you love. We'd love to hear comments from you. If you have any questions, please let us know. Put them in the comments or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com. Don't forget to join us for our live Q&A on Friday, 9 p.m. Pacific time and we will see you next time. Remember, the future is out there. Lead the way.