Distractions are everywhere. We have all witnessed a young woman driving down the highway at 65mph, talking on her cell phone, drinking a cup of coffee, and putting on eye makeup in the rear view mirror. How does she even keep the car on the road?

A sales job offers many distractions. Those distractions can come in the form of a potential customer who is not serious buying but is happy to waste your time and energy to do “a little research.” Others are from team members who like to discuss non work related topics such as their golf game, the fantastic movie they watched the night before, or even to trash talk another employee or manager. All these interactions are infinitely more interesting than sitting down at your desk an making cold calls. I had an employee say to me once, “I would rather chew on a box of nails than call these leads I am getting from marketing.” So, do you talk about the cool movie or eat nails?

Distractions can be powerful and seductive when the alternative is hard work. The reality is that we deal with an enormous amount of distractions every day. Kids screaming, radio blaring, cars honking, office politics, and the list goes on and on and on. So how do you keep the distractions at a distance?

Create a daily routine and stick to it.

Think if this as your game plan. Tiger Woods walks each course multiple times with his caddie. They take notes and discuss how they will play various scenarios on every hole. When Tiger grabs the driver from his bag on the first day of a tournament, he has a plan. When things go wrong, he has a plan for that too. His preparation routine is the same for every tournament. Tiger is a great example because you can see this routine in everything from workouts to the driving range. Tiger is organized.

Whatever your routine. Write it down. Print it out. Put it in your iPhone. Tatoo it on your forearm. Do everything you possibly can to stick to it. Allow yourself to course correct along the way. Get feedback from your mentor, manager or sales coach. Keep refining your routine until it is yielding the results you want. Create routines for daily, weekly, quarterly activities. Once you get deep into the routine you will find that the distractions are fading away and you will execute better.