Ultimate Guide to Staying Focused

Staying focused is a state, not an act that you can easily will

1. Prepare physically

Your body has to function optimally.

If you are dehydrated, lack sleep, feels sick, hungry, itching, you are going to be easily irritated and distracted.

The basics of keeping yourself healthy applies. I’m sure people have heard this hundreds of times (“Mom… I know!”), but most of us are guilty of not taking care of our body at one time or another.

• Drink enough clean plain water – especially in the morning
• Have good quality sleep – sleep consistently in a dark quiet environment for at least 6 hours (no alcohol before sleep – it’s worse than caffeine!)
• Eat at regular hours with a variety of carbs, veggies, and meats
• Have some light exercise like going for a morning walk
• Get an allergy check up – sometimes we itch or react to many common things, you’ll be surprised how much this helps
• Close your eyes and breathe deeply and slowly for 10 minutes – this has been a research proven technique to relieve physical and mental stress.Try different techniques to see which works best for you. If you really have to get into a focused state in a pinch, breathing is the one best thing you can do.

2. Prepare mentally

Your mind has to be clear to be able to focus. Let go of little mental niggles by dumping all of them elsewhere where you can access later.

• Use a to do list that you can access anywhere and is synced – e.g.Wunderlist, Todoist, Trello.
• Personally I use a second “brain” where I just dump ideas, reminders, resources. Evernote works really well for this.
• If you like having tactile and tangible things, you can use a notebook or scrapbook, and make it a habit to bring it around. Check out Bullet Journal for a cool analog system.
• Schedule events and reminders so that you don’t have to keep them in your mind. Microsoft, Google, Apple have their own respective calendars. I find that Sunrise syncs all of them and even Evernote really well.
• Clear your working space – physical clutter can irritate you mentally, which will be a hindrance to focusing.

3. Practice focusing

Focusing on something requires mental effort, which comes easier with practice.

In private correspondence the great mystery writer Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything, he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. — “Haruki Murakami”

With these few steps it should help you in getting into a focused state, and being able to sustain it at length the more you practice.

Do you have any other methods of getting into the “zone”?