How to be more focused.
Do you struggle to focus on a task?
Do you get distracted easily?
Do you procrastinate, and find other things to do?
You’re not alone! We all have things on our list that we don’t want to do.
With Christmas coming up, the end of year and COVID thrown in for good measure, a lot of people are struggling to get stuff done, struggling to focus, and it’s not surprising, with so many distractions. Christmas gifts, coordinating holidays, kids finishing the school year, exams–and for the first time exams might have had to actually be online. There's so many things that can get in the way of us focusing on what we need to do as family members, as professionals, as team leaders, as business owners. It's easy to find ourselves juggling too much and not being able to cope with it all.
So, what can we do about it? Consider the following ideas.
How have you previously got things done?
If you're like me, and easily gets distracted, then what I would encourage you to do first of all is to reflect on how you have got things done in the past. How have you achieved tasks before? If you've had a deadline, was it the pressure that encouraged you to get it finished? Did you have to clear out the distractions from your environment? Did you need to be fuelled by something, by a purpose or a mission? Was it a belief that you have? Was it a responsibility that you had, to yourself or others?
If people are depending on you, maybe you can write a list of all the flow on effects and all the people that will benefit from you getting these tasks done.
Here’s the big tip: consider your talents and strengths. They are clues to how you naturally focus and get things done. If you haven’t taken the Gallup Strengths survey yet, visit www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths today and discover your talents and strengths.
Write a list and schedule your time.
I’ve worked with thousands of students and they were notorious for procrastinating and simply letting distractions get in the way. The number one reason why they don't get things done, especially for students, being young and super-connected online, is that they get distracted by simple things such as their phones. We call it a smartphone, but really, it's the opposite of that because it stops us from getting what we need done – if we let it.
Get a stand-up desk.
I use a stand-up desk. It's great because it keeps me focused and i feel like I’m engaged in what I’m doing. The trick is to keep your stand-up desk away from other people because if you're one of those that struggle to focus, then there’s a risk that you're just going to go and annoy the heck out of other people. Then they're going to blame you for not letting them focus. Not a good outcome for anyone.
Smoko breaks.
Back in the day when people were more freely permitted to smoke and it wasn't shunned, it would give them a chance to step away from their desk, and at least break their routine. This would create a pattern interrupt. Instead of smoko breaks, try these ideas: every 30 minutes go for a walk, stretch, get some exercise, or even knock out 20 quick push-ups. Do something that's going to break you out of that withering focus and regain your attention. Shake out the irritable energy that you had built up and then go back and do another 30 minutes of work. One of the things we recommend to our clients and students is the Pomodoro Technique. You can google it, but basically it's 25 minutes of focused attention.
Remove distractions.
Finally, it's really important that you remove all potential distractions. This strategy, in particular, works for me because like many people right now, I work from home. Anything that's a distraction is going to trigger me, whether it's ironing or washing, tidying up, close the blinds, open the blinds, bring the washing in, make a coffee, clean the coffee maker, blah blah blah… the list goes on. If this is you, then pinch yourself, write a list of all the stuff that gets in the way and then eliminate it before you sit down to do your work. And make sure you set a time limit for eradicating those distractions, or your talents for cleanliness, order and perfection will happily let the day slip away.
Focus is one of the many talents that we all have. We all possess at least some amount of potential focus. In fact, as mention previously, Focus is a talent that's part of the Gallup CliftonStrengthfinder assessment. There are 34 themes of talent. And as you may have gathered, I don't have Focus very high on my Strengths report, it's about halfway down the list for me, so I draw on it strategically and sometimes painfully as I need to.
If any of this is resonating with you, and you haven’t done so already, head over to www.strengthsacademy.com.au and you can learn more about how you and your team can benefit. Over 24 million people around the world have taken the survey and discovered what they're naturally good at. Approximately 85% of Fortune500 companies use this platform to help their staff, teams and executives be more successful. Helping them to move towards excellence and do more of the kind of work that they love – and it has created amazing results.
People who use their talents and strengths:
Look forward to going to work
Have more positive than negative interactions with co-workers
Treat customers better
Tell their friends they work for a great company
Achieve more on a daily basis
And have more positive and innovative moments.
Additionally, they are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life
and are six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs.
Have a wonderful holiday season and please get in touch with any questions.
Dan