5 Simple Ways To Boost Your Focus Today…Guest Article by Jari Roomer
Because of the fast-paced, instant gratification world that we live in, our ability to focus deeply for long periods of time is quickly diminishing.
According to research by Harvard, we spend 47% of the day in a state of semi-distraction. That means that, if we can learn how to focus much better, we can literally double our productivity. Furthermore, according to RescueTime, we check email 55x times per day and instant messaging at least 77x per day.
And, to top it off, a study by Gloria Mark showed that, on average, employees spent only 11 minutes on any given projects before being interrupted.
All in all, we are being wired more and more for distraction and our ability to focus is rapidly declining.
Yet, your ability to focus deeply for long periods of time is incredibly important. Whether you’re coding a new app, writing a book, crafting a report or working on a business strategy, you need to be able to sit still and focus on your important task without getting distracted in order to produce the highest quality work in a time-efficient matter.
As the ability to focus is extremely valuable, yet much less common, it becomes an increasingly rare skill. This means that those who are able to stay focused in our distracted world can expect to be rewarded disproportionally.
Personally, I’ve literally increased my business profit 4x ever since I’ve applied a daily 2-hour deep work session in my workday — in which I’m able to create the same amount of value as I used to create in 8 hours…
That’s why, in this article, I’ll share 5 simple ways that you can boost your focus today so you can start to produce higher-quality work in less time.
Focus Booster #1: Remove All Possible Distractions Beforehand
Distractions are the number one enemy of your ability to focus. Especially distractions in the form of your smartphone, social media, email and news websites — but also distractions such colleagues or inner chatter — are detrimental to your ability to focus.
The key to focus deeply is then to eliminate these distractions before you start working. When you fail to do so, they will pop up during your work, which is terrible for your focus mainly because of two reasons:
- You’ll need to use your willpower in order to fight off these distractions. As willpower is a limited resource (proven by science), this is a battle that you’ll eventually lose. No matter how disciplined you are, you will fail eventually — just like you can’t continue lifting weights after your muscles are completely worn out. When you fall prey to distractions, you’ll lose valuable time, energy and attention that could’ve been spent on your important task at hand.
- Every time a distraction pulls for your attention, you’ll have to take some of your attention away from your task at hand and direct it to the distraction. This creates an open ‘mental loop’ that occupies space in your brain. In fact, according to research, it turns out that it takes (on average) 25 minutes before you’ve regained your full focus on your task at hand. This phenomenon is called ‘attention residue’, which implies that some of your attention is left behind at your previous distraction.
This is exactly why we need to eliminate distractions before we start working on our most important tasks. So, go ahead and put away your smartphone (or put it on flight mode) so that you won’t get distracted by all the alerts and notifications.
For example, through the way the most popular apps are designed, our brain is being trained to expect instant gratifications that produce strong hits of dopamine — which makes our normal work ‘boring’ from a neurological perspective.
The brain literally starts to crave the stimulation and novelty of apps — and is fighting against us when we need it’s power the most. That’s why we need to physically put away our smartphone in order to prevent us from getting sucked into a loop of checking the same apps over and over.
Furthermore, close all the tabs on your desktop that aren’t necessary for completing your task at hand — especially email, instant messaging, social media and news websites. These things can wait until you’re finished with your important work.
Every pop-up or alert you receive from your email or messaging tabs is creating an open mental loop that desperately wants to be closed. In fact, they are designed in such a way that you’ll feel a strong urge to check them out. Protect your own valuable time and attention by eliminating these distractions beforehand.
Also, make sure that colleagues can’t disturb you, so preferably work on a remote location or make clear that you’re in hyperfocus mode. Lastly, if you notice you have a lot of inner chatter going on, write down your thoughts in a journal, capture to-do’s on paper as they pop up, meditate for 10 minutes and maybe cut back on caffeine and sugar (which causes a lot of mental busyness).
Working without these distractions will feel very weird and unfamiliar at first, as your brain is used to (and loves to) work while being distracted. In the beginning, it may even feel boring and frustrating, but this is simply the overly stimulated brain that wants your attention. Over time, this will fade.
Yet, eliminating all of these distractions before they pop-up is key to becoming highly focused and highly productive. By merely working for 2-hours in this distraction-free mode, you can create as much value as you would in 4–6 hours. All because you no longer waste time on distractions and are able to access flow state, which is the most productive state of mind.
Focus Booster #2: Have Clear Daily Goals or Targets
Most people work in a very unstructured and unfocused way on a day-to-day basis because they have no clear daily goals or target. This lack of focus leads to frustration, procrastination and a lack of progress.
But, by setting goals on a daily basis, you create a solid structure and a strong battle plan for your day. This will make you much more productive and focused on a daily basis.
When you know exactly what it is that you need to do today, you create the necessary clarity to prevent procrastination from creeping in, as procrastination feeds of ambiguity. This space of ‘what do I have to do next?’ won’t exist anymore when you set clear goals and targets before you start working.
All in all, setting clear daily goals creates the necessary clarity and structure in your workday to help you get highly focused and productive.
Focus Booster #3: Seek More Simplicity and Minimalism In Your Work
One of the best ways to boost your focus is to seek more simplicity and minimalism in your work. Today, we live in a society of more. Do more. Work more. Take on more responsibilities. Start more projects. Build more side-hustles.
But more isn’t always better…
In fact, I truly believe (and have experienced) that less is more.
In the past, I worked on a hundred things at the same time. I was feeling productive, but in reality, I wasn’t. I was merely being busy.
Despite working hard, doing a lot and working many hours, I was still stuck and didn’t achieve the results that I wanted to achieve. The problem was that, since I was doing so much, I was spreading my time, attention and energy too thin among too many different things. So, none of the projects or tasks received the full attention it required in order to succeed.
In other words, my focus was spread too thin. In my pursuit for more — and in my belief that doing more equalled success — I was actually distracting myself from the few tasks and projects that truly mattered.
And this is something that the majority of us do, nowadays.
In our belief that doing more leads to better results, we are actually destroying our focus. We are spread too thin among too many different tasks and projects — and that’s why so many of us feel stressed and overwhelmed, and remain stuck despite working hard.
Rather, seek simplicity in your work by getting crystal-clear on what tasks, projects and goals truly matter. What does actually move the needle, significantly? Focus on those tasks like crazy.
Seek minimalism by doing less instead of more, but make sure that those things that you do are incredibly valuable and lead to the majority of your most desired results. To use the 80/20 Rule, seek the 20% of activities that lead to 80% of your most desired results.
Instead of focusing on the number of hours or tasks, focus on the value your produce in those hours. Dedicate the biggest percentage of your time, energy and mental resources towards these tasks that create the most value.
This is a new way of working, that’s still very unfamiliar for many. Yet, I’ve experienced that by doing so I’ve been able to increase my business profit with 400+% in less than a year while having more focused, simplistic and less stressful workdays.
If it sounds too good to be true, I understand. To this day, it still feels weird to me too. Sometimes I feel unproductive because I’m doing less (in terms of the number of tasks and the number of hours I work), yet I achieve much more than ever before. It’s quite an interesting paradox.
We’ve been told our entire lives that hard work, putting in more hours and more effort is the key to success — but what if that advice is good, but not great? What if it’s incomplete?
After reading books like ‘The One Thing’ and ‘The Power of Less’ I decided to include the following messages in my daily affirmations, to remind myself to do less in order to achieve more.
“Aim for maximum minimalism in your work. Aim to do less. Focus on a few key things. Focus on the highest value activities. Continuously do an 80/20 analysis. Eliminate or outsource everything else”
And…
‘What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?’
This way, I make sure I adopt a simple and minimalist style of working that leads to much better focus, less stress and better results. Finally, the important stuff gets the attention it requires in order to succeed.
Focus Booster #4: Use The Pomodoro Technique
Another way to instantly boost your focus is to use the Pomodoro Technique. The premise of the Pomodoro technique is that you help your brain focus better by taking regular breaks and by working for a fixed, relatively short amount of time with full intensity on one specific task — without allowing distractions or time wasting.
There are 6 steps to apply the Pomodoro Technique effectively:
Step 1: Pick a task that you’d like to get done — preferably a highly important task
Step 2: Set a timer for 25 minutes
Step 3: Work on the task until the timer rings — with full intensity and without getting distracted
Step 4: Check off your 1st Pomodoro Session
Step 5: Take a 5-minute break to give your brain a rest and recharge your energy
Step 6: Repeat four times and then take a longer break of about 20–30 minutes
The reason why the Pomodoro Technique works so well is that you’re only working in 25-minute bursts on one specific task, so your brain will find it easier to focus on the task at hand. Also, it’s much less intimidating to focus for just 25 minutes on a task compared to one or two hours in a row.
Furthermore, by taking short 3–5 minute breaks every 25 minutes, your brain can recharge and get back to full energy for your next Pomodoro session. This way, you won’t burn out or lose focus over time.
Besides, because of the limited timeframe of 25 minutes, you’ll feel the (good kind of) time pressure that makes you want to focus with intensity and not waste any time. In fact, these are the same kind of effects that you get from applying Parkinson’s Law.
Focus Booster #5: Apply Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law states that ‘work expands to fill the time available for its completion’ which means that if you give yourself a day to complete a two-hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting. We will, in fact, take the entire day to accomplish this relatively minor task.
The extra time might not even be filled with more work to actually improve the quality of the output. Often, the extra time is just filled with more stress, tension and worrying about how to get it done. Often, we fill a lot of the time procrastinating and wasting hours away.
The essence of Parkinson’s Law is to set deadlines that are much shorter than you’ve ever set them before. This forces you to focus on the essentials, avoid distractions and stop procrastinating — making you extremely productive and helping you achieve better results in less time.
When you have too much time available for completing a task or project, you won’t feel the necessity, motivation or pressure to work with impact, focus and intensity. As there’s space available to waste time, stress and worry, you’ll (subconsciously) make use of this space. Remove this space by making your deadlines shorter. Much shorter.
Using the Pomodoro Technique is one way of applying Parkinson’s Law, but you can also do it differently. Instead of giving yourself five days to complete a report, why not give yourself just two days. I bet that in those two days you won’t procrastinate or waste time. Instead, you’ll be extremely focused because you have such a limited time.
When there’s no room for wasting time, you won’t. So use this extra pressure to find what deadlines actually work for you so that you’ll have optimal focus.
For example, I’ll give myself 2 hours to write, edit and upload my Medium posts, including this one. This way, I won’t procrastinate and I won’t waste time. Instead, I focus relentlessly on my task at hand without getting distracted, as there’s simply no time for it.
Not only do I get more views and better reactions on my posts ever since doing so, but I also free up more of my valuable time to spend on other tasks, projects or passions.
Now Do It
Improving your focus and productivity doesn’t just come from knowing about how to do it — it comes from actually applying your knowledge! Therefore, as an action point, apply at least 2 of these 5 tips.
