The Power of Focus – How to Stay Focused in Life?

Multitasking and being “across it all” is seen to be a good thing but neuroscience shows that, if you do too many things at once, everything suffers – including your brain.

A truly productive, healthy, happy life requires focus.

Do you believe that multitasking is the key to success and productivity? Do you pride yourself on your ability to “do it all”?

You might think you’re saving time multitasking, but are you really?

With ever-increasing distractions day and night with social media, email, phone calls, text messages and 24-hour news coverage, the opportunity to be busy and engaged all hours of the day is a real temptation.

With all this engagement and pressure to be “across it all”, what is the real cost of constant stimulation and multitasking on your brain?

Does multitasking enhance or hinder your productivity, health and happiness?

 

 

Less is More

You may be surprised to learn that neuroscience is now revealing that, by multitasking, not only are you being inefficient but you’re severely exhausting your brain, explains Sandra Bond Chapman in her book Make Your Brain Smarter.

Have you ever got to the end of a day of multitasking and felt completely exhausted yet felt you didn’t get through as much as you had hoped?

This is why: a divided and tired brain simply doesn’t work optimally. Your exhausted multitasking brain has a reduced capacity to think creatively, remember things and solve problems.

It gets worse, unfortunately. A tired brain can also make you unwell. Chapman explains that “multitasking actually makes us sick. It leads to a build-up of cortisol, the stress hormone that decreases our memory and contributes to increased braincell death.

Some scientists have even suggested that a build-up of stress and elevated cortisol levels is a major contributor to pathological conditions such as dementia.”

Doing more than one thing at a time is definitely doing more harm than good. So how can you get through more in less time while retaining your brain health and not burning out?

The answer lies in changing how you view productivity and how willing you are to embrace a slower, more focused way of life.

In addition, it’s about being willing to give yourself permission to rest and to set realistic and motivating to-do lists.

Focused Brain, Happy Brain

When you multitask and respond to all the distractions that come your way in a day, you are wearing your brain down, says Chapman:

“The brain’s frontal lobe has to quickly toggle back and forth while performing two tasks. Your brain is built as a single-channel action system with limited capacity; it bottlenecks when trying to do more than one thing at a time.”

If you often multitask in your day, your brain is not used to staying focused on one task or idea for very long, so the first challenge is to relearn how to focus. Focusing your brain is an act of mindfulness.

When you’re doing something, just do that one thing. It doesn’t have to be for the whole day; rather, start by setting small pockets of time to mindfully focus.

This will help keep your brain on track and won’t feel as daunting, especially if you’re used to multitasking.

Start by setting a timer for 15-30 minutes, consciously staying on that one task for the designated time. It may be harder than you think.

You may be surprised at how quickly your brain seeks distraction and also by how many distractions actually come your way in such a short period of time.

At the end of the 15–30 minutes, reflect on how focusing made you feel and how much you got done.

While it’s challenging, you may notice you felt more relaxed knowing that you only had one thing to focus on.

You may also notice you got more done in that block of time than you would normally achieve in an hour when you’re “busy” multitasking.

The power of focus is all about embracing quality over quantity. To keep firing on all cylinders, however, it’s important to take regular breaks and rest.

“Our brain is like our muscles: when we use it too much, it gets tired and needs a rest,” write Paul Hammerness and Margaret Moore in their book Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life.

“After intense periods of focused attention, no more than 90 minutes, take a brain break: take a few deep breaths or get out of your chair and change the scenery.

If you’ve been in front of the computer, some gentle stretching or a short walk will do wonders for your body, not to mention your brain.”

Rest, Reset and Restart

Have you ever been at a party, forgotten someone’s name and racked your brain trying to remember it – but with no luck?

Then you let it go, only to have it pop into your head just as you are about to drift off to sleep?

A stressed brain does not come up with answers or solutions, says Chapman.

She explains that “big ideas often come when the brain stops frantically trying to solve the issue at hand.

The brain thinks more clearly when it is seemingly doing nothing or is in a calmer state … Your frontal lobe works for you in creative ways when you step back.”

Too often, people choose to push through these mind blocks by working longer hours, reducing their sleeping hours and fueling up on caffeine, all in the misguided belief that pushing harder will lead to a solution.

Chapman says, “We are working longer hours in school, at home and at the office; yet, qualitatively, we are less mentally productive than we should be – a clear case where more is not better.”

If you’re struggling to make progress or find a solution, give your brain some time out.

Many people struggle to give themselves permission to relax, often feeling like they’re being unproductive and lazy.

Do you feel guilty when you take time out? Do you find it hard to switch off and unwind?

Without rest, you are doing your brain a disservice and not operating at your best.

By giving yourself permission to stop and accepting that rest is actually a highly productive activity, you can come back to your tasks with new energy and insight.

You will begin moving through tasks efficiently, trusting you’re making great decisions.

When you rest, make room for “nothingness”. When was the last time you just sat and watched the world go by when you were waiting for someone or something?

When was the last time you spent a few minutes in your day simply in silence?

Each time you fill the space and silence with some sort of distraction, you’re requiring your brain to focus and process information.

You are filling up space in your brain that otherwise could have been used to create your own thoughts and ideas. In silence and stillness, great things happen.

Become Self-Aware

Keeping mindfully focused during the day requires you to resist distractions and this is a skill requiring self-awareness.

Some days, when you’re tired, anxious, unwell or stressed, you’ll notice your brain struggling to focus on one task for very long.

When you know why you’re being distracted, you can address the real reason for your distraction and deal with it accordingly.

Maybe you need to work on a less challenging task first, come back to the task on a day when you’re less tired or release some built-up stress by going for a short walk.

If you don’t identify why you’re being distracted and address the root cause, you can spend your whole day rapidly moving from one thing to the next, skimming the surface and not being productive at all.

To bring more focus into your life, you may also need to set new boundaries for yourself and communicate these changes to those you live and work with.

If you have been 100% available to people, it can take some getting used to if you want to resist distractions and stay on track and focused.

Set Boundaries

By setting personal boundaries, you are making a conscious choice about how you will respond to the demands and stimulus in your environment.

Some distractions you won’t be able to control, but many you can.

How often will you check your emails? Will Facebook be open all day on your computer? Will you keep getting push notifications sent to your phone? Will you instantly answer every text message and voicemail you get?

Choosing how to engage in the world is a chance to reflect on your values and what truly matters to you.

No doubt much of what you’re currently doing you’re doing on autopilot. Maybe you haven’t stepped back to consider if it’s helping or hindering you.

Now is a chance to determine if fewer distractions and more control and focus would boost your happiness and your productivity.

Once you’ve made changes regarding how you choose to spend your day, communicate these changes with those in your life, explaining that these changes are designed to allow you to be more present, less stressed and more productive.

 

 

Create Powerful To-Do Lists

Now that you know you need to stay focused, take breaks and rest your brain to be efficient, the next step is to set realistic and meaningful to-do lists.

To-do lists are great as they enable you to get your thoughts and ideas out on paper (one less thing your brain has to retain).

However, a massive to-do list only overwhelms and slows the brain down. Once you have a to-do list, you need to begin to prioritize how you’ll spend your time.

Chapman suggests picking only two major things to work on or aim to achieve each day. While you can list other things to do, they only get addressed if there is time in the day.

Taking this approach allows you to stay focused, keeps your mind uncluttered and enables you to feel that what you aim to achieve is realistic.

By focusing on only two significant tasks, you set yourself up for success and you will begin to feel more in control, more confident and definitely more motivated than if you were facing a massive to-do list – and your brain will thank you for it.

In addition to picking your top two tasks for the day, when it comes to tackling the less important tasks, task blocking helps enormously.

Task blocking is all about grouping like tasks together so you reduce the cognitive load and stress on your brain and move through tasks quickly.

Looking at your to-do list, plan to make all your phone calls in one block, pay all your bills together, return all your emails in one hit or do all your shopping in one go.

As you tick off important tasks on your to-do list, you may notice that you become more energized and motivated.

When you achieve things in life, dopamine is released in your brain. Dopamine is a feel-good hormone that not only makes you feel great but also inspires you to keep going.

By setting realistic goals in your to-do list, you can stay focused and feel fantastic for it.

 

 

While multitasking may seem to make sense, based on the idea that working harder leads to better results, it is in fact doing you more harm than good.

It’s by bringing mindful awareness into your day, by choosing to spend your time in a focused and meaningful way, by resting your brain and by setting realistic goals that you can begin to take control of your life and be truly productive, healthy and happy.