5 Ways To Improve Your Focus Today

I used to be so proud of being able to do many tasks at the same time. I would work on the computer while I was on the phone, while I was eating, while I was taking care of my baby, while I playing a video game, while I was responding to a text, while I was nodding at my partner, as he was asking me to make an important decision.

You get the point. I was training myself to be able to be “as efficient as possible” but really I was training myself to split my attention. I was teaching myself how to give things the least amount of quality attention in an effort to delegate my residual attention elsewhere.

I have gone to quite a few seminars where speakers have claimed that multitasking is a myth. Can a human really do many things at once? Is it more efficient to do a bunch of things at once or one things at a time?

The people that are looking to improve their quality of life need to master these skills: focus and concentration. Spending quality time with something, really thinking about an important decision, really listening and hearing someone else out, without formulating your answer while they are talking, is about focus.

If focus and concentration are skills then how do we develop these skills?

First, we need to acknowledge we are currently training ourselves to split up our focus. For example, do you text and drive? I see it all the time. People are looking at their phone and giving the road the minimal attention required. Although this is an extreme example we can still see how this seemingly casual habit causes us to give the road insufficient attention and therefor puts lives at risk.

Putting all your focus eggs in one basket can be a very powerful skill to master.

Being able to concentrate and putting all your focus eggs in one basket can be a very powerful skill to master.

I would not be able to write this article if I didn't put my focus on writing. I have tried to write many times in the past with tons of distractions and it’s very hard to think about my thoughts when I can't focus well.

Here are 5 ways you can learn to refine your concentration.

One things at a time mindset: You need to go from being a person that is proud of doing many things at once, to someone who is proud of doing one thing at a time. That means digging deep inside you and asking yourself if you want more quantity or more quality. If the answer is both, you will be lacking in one. Quality comes from doing one thing at a time; going deeper. Once you change your mindset and value the one thing at a time approach you will be more focused.

Become aware of Focus Busters: Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! That's right, your focus busters are like ghosts. You won't notice your focus busters unless you start looking for them. You need to start noticing what takes your attention away. It might be your cellphone. It might be social media. It might be the fact that your door is open or that you have too many mosquitoes in your home. When was the last time your read a book for 90 minutes and wrote down each interruption? Or, when was the last time you sat down to journal your thoughts and you kept stopping to do something else? Write down all the things that stop your focus so you can learn what is not working for you.

Let Others Know You Are Focusing: People have a habit of walking over to me and asking me questions that they do not need me to answer at that moment. You need to train people out of the habit of walking over to you every few minutes while you are focusing. Let the people around you know that you need to focus by asking them permission to focus. This will indicate to them that you do not want to be disturbed and will go along way in helping you stay focused because the people around you will support you. Yes, they will need gentle reminders. One way I learned to say no to people is by telling them that I am currently focused on something else. Yes, tell people and they will help you focus.

Set times to focus: If you want to get better at concentration, you need to concentrate more often. But who has time to concentrate when life is moving a mile a minute? Well, you need to make time for the things that are important in your life. As obvious as that sounds, ask yourself if you make time each day to focus. Focus on your mind, focus on your breath, focus on reading, focus on your kids, your business, your future. Set times to focus on specific things and stay with that task or project for that amount of time. It takes about 15 minutes to get back into a project after each interruption so remember if you want to focus for 60 minutes and you have 4 interruptions you won't really have a quality focus time.

Be easy on yourself: Stop being so hard on yourself. Entrepreneurs and professionals these days have a hard time focusing because we have more distractions than ever. As I am writing this a reminder alarm went off and I walked away to deal with it. Then, remembered that I need to drink water so I went to get water. Then I started telling myself, "I am writing an article about focus and I can't even focus myself!" Then, I remembered this: stop being so hard on yourself. We are human and it's ok to break your focus and get distracted sometimes. The question is this: are you creating the ability to be focused more often so you can get more done.

Now it's your turn! What do you do to stay focused? Go ahead and leave me a comment below.

Joe Apfelbaum - Ajax Union

Joe Apfelbaum is the CEO and co-founder of digital marketing agency Ajax Union. He is a public speaker, certified Google Trainer, and published business author. Joe enjoys speaking and writing about a broad range of business topics in his seminars, webinars and articles. Joe is the host of the popular podcast CEO Mojo and the producer of GrowTime.tv. Joe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Brooklyn, a group with over 11,000 CEO’s and a contributing member of the INC Business Owners Council, a community of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Joe is proud of all his accomplishments, but most of all he is proud of his beautiful amazing kids.

For more about Joe, follow Joe Apfelbaum on social media @joeapfelbaum