Eight things you have to stop doing if you want more focus

Focus is a skill, and we need it to enjoy the rewards of putting sustained and channeled attention on the things that matter.

Here are some ways we sabotage our attention this way:

Tolerating distraction.

Many of us kid ourselves into allowing distractions into our environments because we have an emotional connection to those things.

Email notifications, music, visiting toddlers, YouTube videos, text messages, talking colleagues. They are all excuses, diluting your needed attention, no matter how much you rationalize allowing them in.

Caffeine.

I love caffeine, it boosts my mood, but this high comes with a cost. We may have more “energy,” but our focus takes a hit. Why?

Because caffeine puts us in a heightened state, making it harder to bring our attention to any one thing. We become twitchy and more easily distracted, thinking we’re more focused when we’re not. A calm, unstimulated mind is ideal for focus.

Multi-tasking.

This one makes me chuckle because doing several things at once is the opposite of focus. Strong focus means you are doing one thing at a time, undistracted, totally present, and ideally in a flow state. That’s focus. Not writing emails while balancing your baby and on the phone.

Self-consciousness.

If, for whatever reason, you’re thinking about yourself, how you look, and what’s ‘wrong’ with you…your performance will be minimal. Focus should reflect ease in your environment.

If you’re uncomfortable, you will be in your head — and this sucks for focus. Get comfortable and let go of self-pressure if you want to be focused.

An inability to handle resistance.

Steven Pressfield said,?‘The more important a call to action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel to do it.’? Resistance is inevitable, especially if the work is meaningful to you.

So your focus relies — not on your clever ability to never feel resistance — but rather on being OK with this feeling and power on regardless.

Lack of consistency.

Focus must be thought of in general terms, not as a one-off act. We’ll always experience moments when we’re distracted — that’s human.

Lack of sleep.

Getting inadequate sleep is no longer trendy. You may enjoy bragging about how you can manage on less than 6 hours, but you will pay for the accumulated deficit in the long term. Sleep directly replenishes the mind and body, which is vital for superior focus.

Physical tightness.

The state of your body is underrated. If we’re stressed in mind, we will be stressed in the body too.

This is the least effective mode for focus.

Forget your worries and understand the necessity for you to be physically relaxed. If you sense tightness, focus on taking belly breaths for a couple of minutes or even having a goofy shake-out dance. Loosen up before expecting to concentrate well.

Not prioritizing completion.

Having too many projects happening simultaneously is not particularly bad for focus. We all have tons of data coming in. It’s not that. The issue is that you don’t prioritize finishing what you start.

Leaving a trail of unfinished projects instils in you a lack of urgency and, subsequently, your lack of focus on any one thing becomes a self-fulfilling reality.

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