Fueling your focus with clarity
Last month I took the radical step of taking a whole bunch of apps off my phone – Instagram, Twitter, NY Times, etc.
As many people have said and demonstrated before me, the key to mastering your life is mastering your attention. And if you don’t build your skills on this, they will atrophy. As one of my clients told me recently: “I’m not even sure if I have the stamina anymore to take two hours to review an important document.”
Maybe you can relate?
I’ve been working on my own focus these days, and I wrote this article for Forbes about how to eliminate distractions.
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Some of this is good housekeeping – put your phone in airplane mode! I found one strategy particularly interesting, which I heard from Dr. Andrew Huberman. Put a target on your computer and gaze at your target for 30-90 seconds. Apparently, this raises your diastolic blood pressure, which in turn helps you focus (this elevation of your blood pressure is not dangerous.) I’ve been trying it and maybe it’s the placebo effect, but it’s been working for me.
I heard another good idea from Joe Thomas, the Co-Founder and CEO of Loom, on my podcast From Start-up to Grown-up. He noticed that he – like many people - tended to gravitate to the things he loved and were easy for him. He shied away from the things that were hard. So he tracks his time to make sure he’s giving ample focus to the areas that he knows he needs to do, like fundraising or managing someone’s performance , and not overshooting on the areas he loves, like products.
Give it a listen – you’ll enjoy this entire discussion where Joe also talks about his most effective frameworks.
What do you do to make sure you keep the most important thing the most important thing?
Coaching CEOs to Scale & Exit Faster with Less Drama
2 个月Insightful post, Alisa. Removing distractions is a powerful step toward enhancing focus. In my experience, integrating structured time blocks for deep work can also significantly boost productivity. It’s all about creating an environment that fosters engagement and minimizes interruptions. What strategies have you found most effective in maintaining that focus?
Transformation Strategist, Business Advisor & Fractional COO
10 个月This really resonates, it is amazing how much shorter I noticed my attention span getting. One thing that I have been doing is setting aside time to read books and making 30-90 minute chunks of time without a computer or phone within reach while doing it so that I can build back the attention muscles that I noticed atrophying. Thank you for bringing focus up to start the year Alisa Cohn!
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1 年https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552853037045
The best education in the world, for you :: Contributor to Forbes.com on international business education
1 年Notifications are death.
Recording & Performing Artist, Composer, Producer, Teacher, Author & Entrepreneur
1 年Awesome. I just listened to William Green's podcast interview with Pico Iyer this week, and it dealt deeply in this very subject.