Let’s put something into perspective here.

Jasper Philipsen just won the third stage of the world’s largest cycling race, Le Tour de France. He crossed the finish line after 193.5 kilometers in 4 hours, 43 minutes and 15 seconds. Quite impressive, if you ask me. Not only the achievement of winning the stage and being able to actually do the race itself, but think about it like a workday.

When he jumped on the bike today he had ONE task. Finish the stage. I don’t know whether the team had been planning on winning the stage or not, but that’s beside the point.

Think back to the last time you worked fully focused on one task, uninterrupted, for 4 hours and 43 minutes. I bet you can’t or at least you were approaching a serious deadline with lightning speed. If you’re thinking “Oh, I work more than that every single day”, think about your coffee breaks, shifting between tasks, disruptive phone calls or your social media FOMO that constantly makes you check Instagram, Twitter or even Facebook.

I know riders like this can’t sit and check their e-mail or social media doing the race, so naturally there’s no outside distractions. This should really apply to our working hours.

Work when you’re supposed to work, keep a schedule of your most critical tasks of the day (or mountains, if we use the cycling analogy again) and stay focused.

Keep your phone on “Do Not Disturb”, close your email client, block any other distractions that have absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand and just do the job.