Improve Your Concentration and Focus
If you are looking to maximise your productivity, achieve goals and advance in both your professional and personal life you must develop the skills to be able to concentrate, focus and eliminate distractions.
In both our professional and personal life distractions are abound. Learning to direct your attention amongst the endless chatter in our lives is a crucial element to success.
There are many different strategies that you can employ to help minimise distractions, reduce stress and improve focus and attention. Every person is an individual and what works for one may not work with another. Establishing the best strategies that will work for you and get you closer toward your goals will empower you to achieve your goals rapidly.
“Concentration is the key to success in anything in life. You need concentration to carry on a conversation, to raise children, to stay positive, to be able to communicate effectively, to succeed academically, to meditate, to succeed in business, to become good at sports, to achieve the goals you set for yourself, and the list can go on and on.”
The good news is that there are some things you can do to improve your concentration and your focus.
- MAKE LISTS AND PRIORITISE -
Lists aren’t just for doing the shopping! Making lists is not just for the scatter-brained amongst us. At an any given moment, entrepreneur’s minds are filled with ideas, to-do’s, and any number of other important things you don’t want to forget.
Lists are a critical component in ensuring that everything is accounted for. Lists are a great way to organise, prioritise and objectively analyse things so that you can effectively prioritise your day.
Write your list at the end of the day so that you are prepared for what to do the following day. Assign a priority to the items you have noted down. Estimate the time that is needed and determine whether something is nice to do or if it is something that you need to do. When prioritising your list, consider whether it is taking you closer to or further away from your goalsLists create structure and structure creates freedom.
By employing strategies to enable you to reach your peak performance, we can drive up productivity and profitability, we can free up time to do more social things and we can improve the quality of your life.
- TAKE A BREAK -
Sometimes the best strategy is to stop trying so hard and take a break. Our brains were not built to maintain constant attention. Taking short breaks can improve your ability to maintain focus over long periods of time.
When you are deep into a piece of work that you need to get completed, often the best strategy will be to create some structure and build in some breaks.
There are a number of productivity systems that you can use to help you work more effectively, such as the Pomodoro Technique. This technique breaks a task up into twenty-five-minute blocks, followed by a five-minute break. After you’ve repeated these four times, you then take a longer break of around thirty minutes.
Get some fresh air and take a short walk outside. It can clear your head and allow you to re-focus on what is important.
- DO SOME EXERCISE -
A study published in British Medical Journal confirms exercise’s benefits. According to the study, short 10 to 40-minute sessions of exercise resulted in an improvement in mental concentration and focus: even a quick walk can have major benefits on your focus, productivity, and general well-being. If a focused mindset is a goal for you, it’s time to get moving.
Exercise helps trigger endorphins, which improve the prioritizing functions of the brain. After exercise, your ability to sort out priorities improves, allowing you to block out distractions and better concentrate on the task at hand. Your brain remembers more when your body is active.
- RELAX -
Effective relaxation will enable you to be more productive in your day to day life. You will be able to optimally recharge your batteries. When combined with a healthy lifestyle, the right nutrition and physical activity you will be able to attain new levels of success.
Relaxation is not just about sitting in a lotus position and meditating (although that may work for some people!). It could be taking a walk in the fresh air, watching a good movie, going to the gym or reading a book. The possibilities are endless. There is no one size fits all approach. We are all individual and it has to work for you.
Do what works for you, whatever it may be to allow yourself the time to relax and hit the reset button so that you are ready to come back with a renewed burst of energy.
- DECLUTTER -
This applies to both your personal and your professional life. If you always struggle to find something you need it, this can impact upon your concentration when you need it the most. Being organised sets you off on the right footing from the outset. It removes the distraction of having to search high and low for something.
A tidy desktop will enable you to work productively. Work habits are reflected by the environments we work within. If the office, we work in is clean and tidy this will improve our professionalism and productivity in work.
The same applies at home. If your home is clean and well organised, no matter what the day throws at you will be returning to your own sanctuary.
