Learnings and Missteps

From Curveballs To Focus: A Practical Guide To Managing Distractions At Work

• Jesus Hernandez • Season 3

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Ever blink at 4 p.m. and wonder where your day went? We’ve been there—busy all day yet weirdly light on results. This conversation lays out a distraction detox that replaces chaos with clarity using two simple moves: track the curveballs that hit you and cage the squirrels you chase. The payoff isn’t just productivity; it’s the calm that comes from finishing what matters most.

We start by exposing curveballs—emails, calls, texts, “got a minute?” visits—that shred focus. By writing each one down and reviewing at week’s end, you’ll spot repeat sources and install better systems: scheduled check-ins, shared priorities, response windows, and clearer urgency signals. Fewer drive-bys, fewer pivots, more deep work. Then we turn inward to the squirrel cage, where ideas and impulses hijack momentum. Instead of fighting creativity, we give it a home: a capture list that preserves the spark without blowing up the plan. You can explore later; right now, you execute.

We also walk through the Daily Domination Board, a simple Trello or paper setup that helps you commit to a realistic daily limit, move tasks to Done, and earn a reward: no squirrel time until the essentials are complete. That tiny rule rewires motivation and kills the “busy but not done” cycle. To seal it, we share a surprisingly effective bonus: visible do-not-disturb cues. A red headset, a desk sign, or a clear status teaches your environment to respect your focus, especially during morning deep work.

If you’re tired of scrambling, try this: track curveballs, cage squirrels, protect your best hours, and let systems carry the load. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s drowning in distractions, and leave a quick review to tell us what you’ll implement first.

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SPEAKER_00:

Have you ever gone to work and all of a sudden you blink your eyes and the freaking day's gone and you ain't got nothing done? It's not because you suck, it's because you need a distraction detox. And I got some fire for you because that's exactly what we're gonna be going over today. We're gonna go through the plays that I run on the regular that help me do the damn thing. Like play number one is managing my curveballs. And we've talked about this before. We go a little deeper into it. So I'm not gonna go too deep into managing the curveballs, but I want to remind you these are the things that steal our time that make our the end of our day super, super long because we've been getting distracted by other things. The play number two is the squirrel cage, which this is the stuff that I do or that you do, the decisions you make, the little tweaks or little steps off of the path that you take that end up robbing you of your time and put you behind on all your things. And then, oh my goodness, there's gonna be a bonus. Uh, hopefully, I don't get too like preaching too much so that we can actually get to the bonus. And if this is your first time here, I'm Jesse. And I share the tools, techniques, and thinking that have taken me from being a plumber's helper way back in the day, day, to coaching and training construction leaders all over the country. Um, and like for real, for real, for clarity, I didn't do all of these things right out of the gate. I've learnt the stuff, I tweaked it, I've adjusted it, I've applied it in my day. And so, what I like to bring to you is like the distillation, the justified method of how I make sense to all of these things. And most importantly, what I hope you take away from it is that you can tweak it and adjust it to make it fit you. The stuff that we're gonna go over, particularly today, um, on the distraction detox, these are things you can adjust and do it in the way that it best suits you. What I'm going to talk about is how I do it. I'm going to show the tool, the daily domination board that I use to like manage myself and get all of these things out of the way. But the main point is you can tweak them, you can adjust them. You're not going to break it if you don't do it exactly the way I talked about it. And so, of course, if you are out there in the omniverse, uh let me know that you're there because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like people care. Let's just get straight to it. So, thinking about getting stuff done, I spent a lot of time thinking about oh my God, I just need more time. And it didn't matter how much more time, if the deadline was extended, if I worked longer out, I was still under like the same constant pressure and always in a rush and just like, man, what the hell's going on? I need more time. But the thing was, I didn't need more time. What I needed to do was figure out and identify, and this is the key thing, because I think you, just like me, we all know that we're getting distracted and we spend time on things that maybe aren't the most productive thing or like aren't on the to-do list to like really, really knock out the deliverables that we owe to people. We don't spend all our time on that. And you're human, so it's okay to chill, but understanding precisely what it is that steals my time, or more accurately, understanding being able to visibly see what it is that I chase, like what are the distractions that I invite that I let in every day was the thing because once I was able to see it, once I was able to label it and identify it, expose the distractions, I was able to take action on those things and get them out of the damn way. And so when it comes to time management, you gotta know there ain't no point in managing time. I get the most impact by managing myself. And so the question then becomes, how do I manage myself? Well, I am going to show you. So let's go back to the daily domination board, uh, which you can get. It's a free download. Just drop double D in the comments, and uh, I'll hook you up with the link at the end of the show. Uh, so, anyways, back to the board. This is the daily domination board. It's a simple trem Trello template. The template doesn't do all the magic for you. It's the thinking, right? It's the tactics, it's the tool. Combining and using and actually committing to it is the deal. So let's go back to curveballs. So, what do I mean by curveballs? Curveballs, these are the things that hit us throughout the day, all day, every day. Some examples of a curveball are emails. Another example of a curveball is phone calls, text messages, right? Emergencies. Somebody forgot their lunch. You need to take the lunch to the kids, or they forgot their key, you need to take the key. These are random things that throughout the day. Uh, other things that count as curveballs, and I like to call them time bandits, are those people that sneak up on you and say, Hey, you got a minute? Hey, can I talk to you real quick? Hey, can you check this out? I'm not saying that they're bad people, I'm just saying that those people are really, really invested and like taking care of themselves and like completely clueless to the fact that I'm busy or that you're busy, right? That's not a root thing, it's just a behavior that they have. And so all of those things that I've just listed qualify as curveballs. Now, why does that matter? Curveball, because here, like I'll plan my day and I have a lot of stuff to get done. And when I get something done, I move it over to the done column. And then I got another thing. And kind of like I said at the opening, there have been days where, man, I've been working my butt off. But when I look at the stuff that I needed to get like done done, I didn't make any progress. But damn it, I worked all day long. I know I worked, I know I was doing stuff. I wasn't flopping around on my TikTok. It's like, oh, it's because of curveballs. And so tracking the curveballs helps me say, okay, yes, I did work. And also, here is where the curveballs are coming from. So when I create a curveball card, you don't have to use a trello board to make this happen. Like, for real, for real, you can do this on your I've got where is it? Heck, I got this super fancy little whiteboardy thing, piece of paper, doesn't matter. The point is start tracking, start writing it down if you're using the daily domination board, even better because it you can track a lot of data in there, you can sort it, it has a lot of magical functions. Hell, there's more in it than I even know about. But the point is exposing those distractions. Where are those curveballs coming from? And so, what I will do here, right? And this is part of the prescription for your distraction detox. What I will do here, I will say, Renee. I'm picking on you, right? Renee, Renee, hit me up, right? It doesn't have to be super articulate unless you really want to, right? And then I'm gonna do another one. Uh-oh, what was it? Uh phone call from editor, right? Let's just say it's all the same day. Uh-oh, then I got some text messages from the editor again, right? None of these things were planned at all. It was it was stuff that kind of came out of left field, but it was urgent. Uh, and so I I took action, I did the thing. Or another one is boss asked for more stuff, right? Or in my case, a client requested a proposal for services, um, which of course I'm gonna do that, but it wasn't on my plan. And what that does is because of the urgency or the nature of the thing, we'll I'll stop doing what I'm doing, and then I'll handle the call from the editor, or I'll do the thing that my boss asked me to do, which is like none of those things are horrible, except for the fact that they invade my space and distract me from the goal, right? I don't I don't complete the things that I committed to complete. And a lot of times the things that we're committing to complete are like time sensitive. And so I gotta finish them. So I'm not able to finish them because I'm doing all these other things. I don't think this is a thing that you've never experienced. And if it is one of those things, like if I'm just talking over your head and it never happened, let me know in the comments because maybe I'm the only one with this sickness. But the idea again is to track all the things. Now, tracking the curveballs, that's only part of it, right? You're like, okay, so I know these fools interrupt me all the time. So now I'm gonna write them down and that's gonna make all the difference. No, that's the first step. Because at the end of the day, or at the end of the week, for me, it's at the end of the week. I'm gonna be, as I go through my work day and knock these things out, they're gonna go in the done column, right? And then I'll reflect. And you can see here super, super fast, two of these, three of these are coming from the editor. So I got three disruptions, three distractions in the middle of my day that came specifically from one source. That's valuable to know because sure I had five of them. One of them's a good one, right? I had a client that wants a proposal for more work. That's fantastic. The other ones are not so fantastic. It's like, come on, man, like three times in the same day. And then when I could see that, then I could say, oh, all of my curveballs are coming from the same source, they're coming from the same person, that you know, whatever it is, which then gives me the intel to put or design a system to manage that, right? Because they're not doing it to be ugly, right? They need the editor, they need something from me. I need to respond so they could finish the thing or fulfill the request that I made to them and so on. But clearly, we don't have a method of communication or a system to like surface issues and articulate like whether they're time sensitive or not. And so, what I would do in this instance, and what you can do again, maybe you don't have an editor, it doesn't matter. But when the curveballs are coming from the same place and you track them, you will expose your daily distractions, and that will set you up to take action on the thing. Sometimes it could be just a phone call, right? But what we do is we deal with them, we feel the distraction, we feel it, we feel it, we feel it, and then we're behind, and then we're working late, and then we're in a rush, and we're frustrated, and all the things. When you track them, you'll be setting yourself up to take action and manage that thing like out of the situation. And so that is what we've got on curveballs. Main, main point that I want you to take away from this is start tracking, write it down, use the daily domination board, but something physical that you can go back and read and review at the end of the day, or I think it's better if you do it like at the end of the week, so that you can see where are all of those curveballs coming from? Where are all those time bandits? Who are the time bandits? So you can put something in place one at a time. The one that's hitting you the most, do something to manage that because then they will distract you less. And what does that mean? That means you will focus more on doing the damn thing, doing the things that matter the most to you. The next one, and this one, ooh, this one takes some introspection and like extreme ownership. And so this one is the squirrel cage, and on the do the damn thing template, that's already built in for you. So you don't need to build it up. It's there, but the idea behind the squirrel cage is this, and it helps me separate, right? Curveballs come from other people, external sources. These are distractions that jump into my space and rob me of my focus that are outside of me, right? They are not the human, they're not me. It's them, the them, the notorious them. That's where curveballs come from. The squirrel cage is all about me, the squirrels that I chase, the shiny objects, the distractions that I have full control over. And so the way I came, like discovered this, I was working, it was like during the lockdown, and I was asked, like, hey man, how productive are you now that you're not traveling? And da-da-da-da. I was like, you know, I have no idea because I'm working 16 hours a day. I just get up, I turn on my computer, I have my meetings, I do other things, but I don't like I'm getting a lot of stuff done, but I haven't measured it. And so when I started measuring it, I'm like, oh my God, like this is why it takes me so long to get things done. It's because I'm doing other stuff that wasn't on my list, right? Like my task work, well, just work related. It was other stuff. And so then I started like, huh, what are those things? And because I started using the squirrel cage, I was able to see that the thing that internally, the squirrels, my squirrels are ideas. I would get an idea and I would start, I would Google it, right? And I would look into it and I would start tinkering around with it because I had this irrational fear that if I didn't do anything with the the idea, it would disappear forever and I won't change the world. And so I said, Ah, sometimes the idea was a simple thing, right? And I would just kind of look into it and buy something on Amazon, whatever it is, just a random thought that popped in my head. And sometimes, like I went down the rabbit hole. I started creating vlogs and looking into things and watching a YouTube video on it and like going all the way in. And there's an hour gone, boom, just like that. Two hours gone, just like that. Or I would get a text or an email and I would open it, right? Because guess what? You don't have to open and respond to those things the second you get them. Well, anyways, and Jesse Land, at least, you don't have to do it immediately. And so what I started doing was tracking the squirrels, the things that would distract me that I would just arbitrarily decide they weren't on the list, they weren't priority, they weren't urgent, they were just things I decided to do. And again, for me, I was able to identify that it was my ideas, the ideas that popped in my head that I would chase. That may not be the same thing for you. I know some people that you know they have their work stuff and then they have a personal thing. It's like, oh, I forgot to call somebody, oh, I forgot to call her, I forgot to do the thing. Oh, I need to go move the truck, like random stuff, whatever it is, the squirrel cage is those things that you chase, right? The curveballs, those are the things that come at you. The squirrel cage, those are the things that you chase when you should be getting other things done, right? When you have other responsibilities to execute and deliver on stuff. And so the idea here for me, I handle it a little bit differently. So if you go back to like the big board, there's the done. All of the um curveballs, those are always going to go in the done column, and I will review and identify where the curveball is coming from and come up with something to like mitigate or manage that. The squirrel cage stuff goes over here in the squirrel cage. Why you ask? Well, because I don't want to lose the idea. It was something interesting. It was something that, yes, I need to take action on that, or it's a future plan or a thought or idea that I can take, that I can like move on in the future. Nobody cares if I do it or I don't. So I want to keep it so I keep a log of those things so that I can make a service better, so I can follow up with somebody, so I can check somebody's birthday, like all of those really thoughtful things. I put those in the squirrel cage because I do want to do them, but they have no urgency, they're not time sensitive. So I keep them in the squirrel cage. And the way it looks like in practice is right here, squirrel cage. So this morning, like full confession, I was watching YouTube and they were talking about sound bites, like the stall type phrases about uh that for marketing. And I'm like, oh, I really like this subject. So what I wanted to do was start like, let me listen to everything I can about sound bites and look into the book. They have free download. I said, ah, nope, not gonna do that because I got the the live stream, so I'll create a soundbite in the squirrel cage and it's there. I can come back to it. Now I built in a kind of silly, not silly, it works super well for me, but I built in a reward system. And so here's one of the cheat codes, right? This was just extra because you're my favorite. I built in uh a little reward system for me. And so what I did is when I had my task list, right? Last live stream we talked about what knowing what your limits are. And at this time, when I was kind of tinkering around and discovering all these things, my daily limit was 15. I brought it down to 11, and that was like that was good because I got a lot of work done and I was also nicer to people. And so the deal was I could not go play in the squirrel cage, I could not go chase any after any of my ideas until I completed all of the tasks that I committed to getting done that day. And so when I knocked out all 11 tasks that were on my original plan, that then opened the door for me to go and play in the squirrel cage. I could go tinker around with one of those ideas, or maybe three or five or six. It doesn't matter. All of that, like, yes, doing all of that helped me get a whole hell of a lot more done. Right. I was executing, I was knocking things down, knocking things out, doing the damn thing. But here's the like the unspoken, unmeasurable part. I felt a million times better. I didn't have the stress or the pressure of failing to deliver or looking at my clock and saying, oh shit, it's four o'clock, and I still have these other things that I haven't even started yet. It's gonna be a long day. I'm gonna be late to the thing, I'm gonna cancel the thing, I'm not gonna work out it. Like, I didn't have to deprioritize or negotiate with myself about getting the important things done. I was actually getting everything done and feeling really, really good about it. And so if you're like a feelings person and maybe this is too technical with all the little cards and writing all the things down and saying, like, why the hell would I do it? Here's why. Because you will feel better about yourself. How do I know? Because I did, and everything becomes lighter, easier, and you're able to knock things out quicker, faster. Like it has this compounding effect just by the simple fact of tracking the things and managing them. Again, talking about the curveballs. What do you do with the curveballs? You label them, you identify where they're coming from. Those are the things that come in at you so that you come up with a system or a method to better manage them. Squirrel cage, the squirrels, that's me. That's in that those are my little decisions that I take that take me off course. And so those I want to capture them, document them, and put them in the squirrel cage. My system for managing that was I had a little reward system. Once I get all of the things done, the 11 things that are on my day every single day, then I get to play in the squirrel cage. If I get another random idea, there's another squirrel I want to chase, I write a card and I put it in the squirrel cage because I know they're all gonna be in the squirrel cage and I can go play with them whenever I get all my damn work done. So I'm wondering, we got some comments out there. Of course, I want to shout out my people, but I'm wondering, does this sound like too intense? Does this sound like way, way like bro, you got problems? How do you have time to do all those things? Or does it sound like something you could pick up, like to a little degree or the other? And folks, the little board that I've been flashing on that is the daily domination board. Um, and if you're like if you want to super, super boost, supercharge your start on the thing, it's a free template. Drop double D in the comments, and I will get you the link so that you can download the thing and start playing around with it. I got an instructional video on like how to do all the little things. It's actually it's got I've already pre-populated a bunch of cards so that you just follow the card so you can start start using it and putting it into action. All right, I promised you a bonus. Bonus time. It is bonus time, and so it's again super simple, super goofy in terms of managing the curveballs. Like this isn't even man, like they don't even become curveballs. It is these magical red headset beats. I like beats. I know it still has a cord, but you know what? It works. I used this for years, and it was amazing because you already know that people you got the time bandits, they're like flies, mosca's always coming buzzing around you. Or if you're like on a Zoom call or a Teams call or whatever, they just kind of hover there. Are you busy? Like, no, fool, I'm binking brownies. So, what I started doing, and it's like it has a magic, like I don't even have to have the conversation. There've been a couple of people that I did, which is a special case, it's the red beats. I put these things on, red means stop, and so what happens is people just I didn't get those random distractions that really weren't like super important because I had the red beats on. I used to, I mean, I have earbuds, like, don't get me wrong, I have my super fancy uh things that I use when I'm running and whatever, but those don't help people stop. They assume that you're listening to music or whatever. What helped people stop for me was these red, this red set of headset. I guess that's the way you say that. Now, does it have to be that I don't know necessarily? It's the tool that I use, so that's the bonus. Put some kind of visual indicator for the people around you to understand that you are not available that tells them loud and clear, no, I don't have a second, no, I don't have a minute, no, I am not okay with real quick. I know it feels a little like less than nice and not great. I get it. And I'm not saying like, so don't think you got to do it 24 hours a day, every minute that you're on the clock. Just when you're really, really focused and trying to get your damn stuff done, right? Maybe, maybe it's the morning. I know for me, the morning is when I'm like super, super focused. I can get a lot of stuff done. I don't need people bugging me. Guess what? I don't do in the morning. I don't answer my phone and I don't reply to texts. I sure as hell don't check emails because I'm busy and deep work and getting things done. And so, you know, your situation is different. You probably have a job, like a real job, not like me. Something like this will help help freaking sign on the wall or on the cubicle or something so that people understand that this time frame is not the time to go and bother them. Appreciate y'all very much. Be kind to yourself, be cool, and we'll talk at you next time.

unknown:

Peace.