Stay Focused At Work
With These 10 Tips
Staying focused at work is a
constant challenge. If it’s not a coworker wanting to chat, your phone beeping
at you, or a hundred emails filling up your inbox, it’s your own mind’s
tendency to wander. Here are ten tips to help you deal with distractions
and stay focused on your work.
1.
Be honest.
Revolutionary, I know.
But maybe you should try it,
as long as you can remember that being honest doesn’t mean being rude. It means
simply telling people the truth, in a courteous way. For example, try being
honest when the chatty coworker stops by and says, “Got a minute?” Or when you
get a text from your drama-loving friend. Or when your mom sends an email
wanting your help “real quick!” with booking a hotel for her next visit. To all
these requests, you need to speak the truth: “I can’t right now. I’m working.”
Feel free to follow up with
an alternative:
- Try asking so-and-so.
- Check with me after work.
- I’ll do this at my next break.
- Remind me on the weekend.
- Let’s talk about it next time I see you.
2.
Put a mind map right in front of you.
Not any mind map. One that
shows a visual progression of you staying focused at work and how that leads to
your goals.
What are your goals at work?
To be the mediocre employee
who does a half-hearted job? I think not.
Even if this job isn’t your
dream job, doing your best at it will open up more opportunities for you, gain
you more skills, and lead you to better places. So map it out and then put that
map where you can see it and remind yourself that, yes, staying focused really
does matter.
3.
Make a bet.
Surely some of your
co-workers or friends also struggle with staying focused and being productive.
It’s time to make it matter
where it hurts: in the wallet.
Make a friendly bet over who
can accomplish more in the day or week. Of course, you don’t even have to bet
money. You can bet on who has to clean out the office fridge or be the
designated driver next weekend.
4.
Wear headphones.
Even if you don’t listen to
anything, putting headphones on signals to other people that you are not
available.
So bring a pair of those
giant headphones, put them on, and get to work. Take them off during breaks or
when you’re free for a chat. If you can do your work while listening to music
or podcasts, do it. It will help you ignore the ambient noise and background
conversations which can so easily break your concentration.
5.
Use a timer.
Go to the nearest dollar
store and get a cheap kitchen timer. Sure, I know; you could use the one on
your phone or computer. But the point is to stay focused, and opening up
another app or tab is just going to give you an opportunity to check Facebook
real quick, or answer that text, or look up that one thing…
You know where that goes.
Instead, buy a timer that
does one thing and one thing only: times you as you work. Put it in front of
you at your workspace, set it for 15 minutes, and ask yourself to focus on your
work until the timer goes off.
When the timer goes off, you
can either take a 2-minute breather, or you can keep plugging away.
Every day, increase your
“focus time” by a couple of minutes until you work your way up to focusing for
45 or 50 minutes at a time. Be sure to take a 5-minute break after your longer
focus time so your brain can recharge and be ready to go again.
6.
Be stupid-simple about what you’re doing.
Here’s where most of us get
hung up on focusing at work: we ask ourselves to do some big, hairy, enormous
task. Our brains freak out and want to run away, which we do by playing Candy
Crush or answering pointless emails.
Your brain needs specific
tasks to accomplish, not big, huge, vague, intimidating mountains to climb.
Start telling yourself what
you’re doing in the simplest of terms. Dumb it down until you feel a little
silly about it.
- “I’m going choose one color for this
design scheme.”
- “I’m going to write two sentences of this
blog post.”
- “I’m going to file one paper.”
What this does is give your
brain a specific, understandable, and easy starting point.
And once you get started, you
can keep going.
7.
Use the 5-10-40 rule.
Okay, this isn’t really a
rule. It’s just a thing I made up that works.
Feel free to steal and use.
Here’s how it works.
You need that timer.
Remember, the one you bought? Right. Set it for five minutes. Now spend
five minutes figuring out what it is you need to focus on next.
Next, set the timer for 10
minutes, and spend 10 minutes figuring out exactly what needs to be done in
that area you need to focus on. Make a list, brainstorm, create a mind map,
check your research or project emails, do whatever you need to and create a
guideline of the specific (stupid-simple) tasks that need to be accomplished
and in what order.
Next, set your timer for 40
minutes and start working your way through those actions, one at a time. If you
only get one accomplished in 40 minutes, that’s okay. Scratch it off, take a
five-minute break, and then come back and tackle the next one.
8.
Write a single sentence about your day.
For this to work, it’s best
to do it at the beginning of the day.
That’s right. You’re not
writing a progress report or a log of your work day. You’re simply taking a
couple of minutes, at the beginning of the day, to write a single sentence.
And that single sentence
should say exactly what your day will have looked like if you stay focused.
- “Today I wrote 3,000 words and researched
two new articles.”
- “Today I finished that report and turned
it in.”
- “Today I created a great design mock-up
for my biggest client.”
- “Today I landed two new customers.”
What does your day look like,
how much do you accomplish, when you stay focused?
Remind yourself of that
possibility at the beginning of the day, and you’re much more likely to do it.
9.
Keep a progress meter.
You know those poster board
signs with the badly drawn graphics people use when they’re fundraising for
some worthy cause?
Make one of those.
It doesn’t have to be on
poster board, of course. You can use a Post-It. An index card. The back of your
hand. The sketchpad on your phone or tablet. A document in your computer.
Whatever.
Break down your current big
project into steps. Then draw that representation of a ladder or gauge or
arrow, mark different spots for each step, and fill it in as you accomplish
those steps.
There’s something really
powerful about seeing your progress toward a goal in a simple, visual way.
10. Use
the index card method.
Sometimes we have so much to
do that we simply get too overwhelmed to start.
To help yourself focus on a
few important tasks, get an index card. Look at your long, long list and your
calendar, and choose three things. The most important three things, the highest
priority out of all the stuff you really need to do.
Write them down on your index
card.
Now flip the card over, and
on that side, write down at least one of the following:
- a reward of some kind (gourmet coffee,
chat with a friend)
- a work task you really like to do
- a task which you really feel good about
accomplishing, but which isn’t one of the top priorities
Your top three tasks are your
focus for the day.
If you do them, you get to
flip the card over and get/do whatever is on the other side. (So be sure it’s
something you like.)
Here’s the final trick to
making this method awesome: save your index cards. That’s right. Don’t throw
them away.
Stick them in a drawer, and
when you’re feeling distracted or discouraged, pull them out and look at all
those scratched-off items. You did that. You. You focused on a few important
things, accomplished them, and reaped the rewards.
And you can do it again.
BY ANNIE MUELLER
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/stay-focused-work-with-these-10-tips.html?ref=mail&mtype=goal_reminder&mid=20161004_with_thumbnail&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=read_more&goal_id=24&token=d0e3e4b03809d240b52d71f8a6770fa9
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