Last month we took a look at the importance of focus and took a few steps toward being able to focus well. This month we’ll take some more steps towards improving our ability to focus.
It’s been said that having the ability to focus well is like a superpower. We’ve all probably experienced what it’s like to try to get something done when our mind keeps jumping around on us. Not only is this frustrating, it also hampers our productivity. Hopefully, we’ve all experienced some times when we’ve been able to focus well and our work begins to flow faster and improve in quality.
Focus can be looked at as a mental muscle that we can exercise, train, and strengthen. It’s helpful to think of the ability to focus as a skill that we can learn and improve. It’s not helpful to defeat ourselves by thinking things like I can’t focus and, as a result, getting stuck in that reality by believing we can’t do something and ceasing to try to improve, even a little bit.
So how can we take steps toward being able to strengthen our ability to focus? A simple, possibly difficult, definitely effective step is to detach from our devices. Obviously this doesn’t mean not using one at all. It just means being less distracted and led by what’s going on with our devices.
The average person checks their phone hundreds of times a day. Even if each check lasts only a few seconds, switching the brain’s attention this many times tires it out. This means we have less mental energy to direct to whatever we want or need to be doing.
Technology in general is extremely distracting. It has taken a terrible toll on the quality of our relationships and our social skills. Making a decision to turn devices off for a while or at least choosing to ignore their noises while we’re with friends and family results in us being able to be more present for the people in our lives instead of being constantly distracted, half there and half elsewhere. We’ll find we have more joy in our relationships and circumstances when we learn to be more fully present for our people.
Sleep, nutrition, and movement all direct affect our ability to focus as they increase the health of our brains which leads to being stronger mentally which of course helps us focus better.
Many productivity experts recommend following a specific schedule (of course, different people have different schedules they recommend). Some recommend 20 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. Others may say two hours of work then twenty minutes of taking a brain and body break. Experiment a little with what sort of work and break rhythms work well for you and we’ll keep focusing on focus next month.
