How to Focus on the Present

“Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.” - Bil Keane

Although we all know that today is a gift and whatever one needs to do to achieve one's goals needs to be done today and now, everyone, at one stage or the other and generally at various stages of life, finds it difficult to focus on the present. He (the word ‘he’ includes ‘she’ and has been used in gender neutral manner in this article) finds himself worrying about the past or the future and struggles to focus on the task on hand.

Why does this happen? How to overcome this problem and to successfully focus on the present, always? Here is a clue and solution.

Let us go back to our school or college days. If we recollect those days we will realise that we always were busy with one thing or the other. Generally, we were never worried about our past or future. Even when once in a way we were worried about a past incident or a future event, those moments used to be short-lived and we used to quickly revert to the task on hand at the moment, moment after moment. Why was that? Let us examine.

Take the case of a student of Class 12 who wants to do B.Tech from an IIT. (Example of B.Tech as a goal is taken for the purpose of illustration only and what is stated below is equally applicable to students of other streams aiming for other qualifications as well.) Therefore, his long term goal is to do B.Tech from IIT. This goal can be broken in to the following smaller and short term goals which contribute towards achieving his long term goal:

a)     Completing Class 12 examination with high score

b)     Clearing JEE with high score and getting in to an IIT

c)      Completing B.Tech with flying colors

Therefore, when he is studying in Class 12 he is not worried about the past, i.e., how much he had scored in, say, Class 10. Although he may be anxious about whether he would be able to clear JEE with adequate score or not, he knows that all he has to do is to study well for Class 12 exam and JEE. So, every day from early morning to late evening he has a clear schedule i.e., attend his college and attend Class 12 & JEE coaching classes and focus exclusively on studies. If he can focus on studying for Class 12 exam and JEE without distractions the following two things will happen.

i)       He will be so busy that he has no time to worry about the past or the future. Focusing on the present becomes automatic and easy

ii)      He will successfully accomplish his two short term goals (a) and (b) mentioned above

This is exactly what thousands of students do successfully every year.

This experience from our student days can be replicated in our professional life also. What needs to be done is well known and quite simple but is not very easy to practice. The road map is as under:

1.      Have SMART goals. Goals should be Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

2.      Have SMART goals in various spheres of your life viz., the professional/occupational goals and personal goals.

3.      Personal goals could be related to body (fitness, healthy food etc.), mind (acquiring additional qualifications, general reading etc.) or soul (meditation, spirituality etc.)

4.      Write down the goals. Unless goals are clearly written down they remain only as wishes.

5.      Break the goals in to smaller goals i.e., in to annual, quarterly and monthly goals

6.      Decide what needs to be done DAILY to achieve various monthly goals

7.      Schedule the daily tasks to make them a part of a daily routine

8.      Focus every day on doing every bit of what has been scheduled

9.      Have monthly, quarterly and annual reviews

10.  Do course correction and revise the goals if we have been unable to achieve the monthly goals

If the above road map is followed then all we need to do on a daily basis is to focus exclusively on execution of the daily schedule, periodic reviews and course correction. If this is done with required discipline (Discipline = Doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and how it needs to be done, whether you like it or not), then achieving goals is guaranteed. We will have no time to worry about past or the future. Focusing on the present becomes automatic and easy.

Wish you Godspeed.