Tips to improve your focus and concentration
Try this 30-day focus challenge
In 2018, I found myself in Boston giving a keynote speech about guilt to a room full of female entrepreneurs. In my speech, I said: “I’d rather be a present mom for 2 hours a day than a distracted mom for 4.”
A woman came up to me after the talk and said this was her lightbulb moment. She realized that by spreading herself too thin, no one was getting the best version of her. And this happens in a lot of scenarios. For example:
-
Checking Slack while at dinner with our family
-
Sending emails while at the gym
-
Scrolling Twitter while trying to decompress on the couch
How to stop losing track of time
In my Masterclass, I teach the 5 C’s of lost time:
-
Cognitive overload — trying to remember too much
-
Context switching — trying to do too much
-
Consumer diet — trying to consume too much
-
Chaos — lack of organization
-
Calendar creep — unrealistic expectations
On average, people take 9.5 minutes to get back into a productive workflow after switching between apps or tasks. Let’s look at a visual of how we lose time by context switching (below). So how do we solve it? The focus formula.
The focus formula is taking all your cognitive resources and putting them on a single source or task. Others may call this undivided attention.
“That’s nice. But I have so much on my plate and everybody needs me all the time.” I hear this a lot in my coaching sessions. My challenge to you is understanding why you don’t feel like your goals or needs are as important as someone else’s.
Weak boundaries are a form of people-pleasing. Someone’s inability to shut out distractions (out of fear of missing a text, email, slack, etc) is usually a fear of losing that person’s love, attention, validation or being needed. If this pings something for you, then perhaps it’s a sign to stay here and really sit with it. Ask yourself who modeled that for you. Who taught you that your needs come second?
Tips for remaining focused for one hour
Ready to take back your goals and apply the focus formula? Let me introduce you to the one-hour challenge. I challenge you to pick one thing that is important to you that you feel has not been getting your undivided attention. Examples:
-
That project you want to ship this year
-
Building muscle
-
Deepening your relationship with your kids
-
Strengthening your relationship with your partner
-
Investing in friendships
-
Planning a trip
Pick something that you find yourself saying “When things slow down, I’m going to focus on that.” Pause here. Don’t proceed until you have the thing in your mind. Got it? Ok. Let’s focus.
Step 1: Schedule it on your calendar
Pick a time that you can stick with most days. Depending on the item you selected your time slots may vary. For me, I am going to go straight to the gym after I drop off the kids and work out from 8:30 am to 9:30 am before I get sucked into meetings or emails.
Step 2: Shut off the devices and eliminate distractions
When that time comes, it’s time to shut it all down. Ask yourself: What distracts me the most when I try to focus? Now shut it off.
I keep my phone on “Amanda Mode” which only allows my kids’ school, partner, and parents to reach me. Everything else is silenced.
If you are working on a project, close all unrelated tabs. Even email. Yup, Slack too. Turn off everything that is not related to the project.
If you are working on being more present with your kids, remind yourself it’s an hour. You are going to sit and play with them for an hour and everything else can can wait.
Step 3: Set a timer
Believe it or not, one of the biggest distractions is the clock itself. We look and start calculating minutes until the next task. We start thinking about the next chore, email or project. We’ve lost the focus formula because your resources are no longer solely focused on the thing in front of you. So set a timer for 60 minutes and get to work.
-
Build that Lego set
-
Get that workout in
-
Write that newsletter
Where focus goes, energy flows. Stop allowing other people’s needs to distract you from the thing you’ve deemed important for a month and see how it goes.
