Five methods for sharpening focus

reMarkable
reMarkable Blog
Published in
5 min readFeb 25, 2020

--

Workday distractions may seem endless. Unanswered emails pile up, social media notifications buzz, and the requests from colleagues never stop. Then there’s your jam-packed calendar to consider.

Luckily, the path to achieving sharp focus doesn’t need to be complicated. Here are some effective tips on how to reduce the outside noise, and concentrate on what matters:

Get organized

A good place to start would be your workspace. Once you’ve decluttered your desk, you can begin tending to your mental clutter.

Establishing a to-do list is a great way to achieve a sense of calm and gain some control over your situation. It works by moving the tasks from your head to the page, so you have a clear visual overview of what you’re facing.

A popular to-do list methodology is the ‘burner list.’ Devised by author Jake Knap, this technique helps you focus on your high priority items and puts less important tasks on the ‘back burner.’

One task at a time

Our brains simply aren’t made for multitasking. In fact, according to the latest research, it can cause heightened mental stress, affect memory, and make it hard to concentrate.

Keeping only one browser tab open at a time, is a good example of how to narrow your focus, as opposed to trying to do everything at once. If you need help with this approach, Google Chrome plug-in Onetab, is a useful resource for anyone wanting to keep their focus sharp while online. The same idea extends to managing email, instant chat, and other more specific software tools. Using them all at once makes it more challenging to be efficient with any of them.

Some workplaces find that a color coded system involving desk lamps, or hats, is an effective way to encourage their employees to work in focused blocks. Keeping a written to-do list works by moving the tasks from your head to the page, so you have a clear visual overview of what you’re facing.

Depending on how you like to work, there are a number of different task managing methods available. One popular approach is the Getting Things Done (GTD) framework. A brain-friendly system that doesn’t require a computer or smartphone, just some paper and a pen.

GTD is an easily accessible strategy for brainstorming and prioritizing your tasks, that divides everything you need to do into a set of lists titled:

  • In
  • Next actions
  • Waiting for
  • Projects
  • Maybe or someday

A highlight of this technique is how it encourages you to ‘just do’ tasks that will take less than two minutes, instead of adding them to your ‘next actions’ list.

Take breaks

A vital part of being productive is knowing when to work and when to rest. Taking breaks from challenging work processes is just as essential to thinking and creativity as the actual work you put in.

There is an increased understanding in recent years among psychologists, regarding the role of ‘mind wandering’ within the process of paying attention. Some experts, like Harvard psychologist Paul Seli, have suggested giving your mind a break can have positive results.

“Think about something unrelated, maybe problem-solve something else that you’ve got on your mind and then come back to your task,” he said.

Remove distractions

Scheduling off a sizable block of time to achieve your goal might be a smart place to start. Pre-planning a time for when you’ll be unavailable, will allow you to avoid any unnecessary meetings, requests, or social distractions, without offending or inconveniencing anyone.

According to a Udemy survey, the biggest distraction factor for office workers is office ‘chatter.’ So some options for shutting out noise might be worth considering, some prefer music and others silence, a decent pair of noise-reducing headphones will do the trick either way.

Some workplaces find that a color coded system involving desk lamps, or hats, is an effective way to encourage their employees to work in focused blocks. An employee wearing a red hat, for example, might be an agreed-upon sign that they’re working on something important and don’t want to be disturbed.

Keeping an open mind about notifications and their ability to draw our attention away from the task in front of us, is also an important part of staying focused. Another useful way to ensure you remain on track, is working with tools that aren’t likely to attempt to redirect your attention elsewhere, like paper, or a paper tablet.

Should you need any help resisting temptation, Freedom, AntiSocial and SelfControl are just three examples of apps allowing you to block specific content for a predetermined length of time.

Blocking out time in your calendar for focused work will allow you to avoid any unnecessary meetings, requests, or social distractions, without offending or inconveniencing anyone.

Train your brain

Getting enough sleep, exercising, and sticking to a healthy diet can go a long way towards a sharp and optimized mind.

Training your mind to focus longer, is just like training your body to improve your aerobic capacity. As with physical training, the more work you put in the more rewards you’ll experience. A common method for building attention ‘muscle,’ is the Pomodoro method.

The method itself is quite simple: work for 25 minutes, then take a five-minute break, and repeat. After four “Pomodoros”, take a longer break. There are a host of apps that will help you adjust the timings, so you can practice with the goal of longer focused sessions, or you could just use a stopwatch.

Drawing, reading, or writing can also be used as a more ‘analog’ approach to tasks, that will help you think better, but also get your brain used to working harder for longer.

What will you use your newfound focus on?

--

--