Cultivating Focus
On this journey to becoming the best version of yourself, what I like to call Becoming the CEO of You, one of the most important things you can do is cultivate the ability to focus. In a world that is constantly finding ways to distract you — social media, notifications, news stories, and an endless stream of information competing for your attention. This can lead to a feeling of constantly feeling pulled in multiple directions.
Before we can focus on creating goals, we need to cultivate focus — that ability to direct and maintain your attention on those what you want, when you want.
Brain Dumps
One of my favorite strategies to use are brain dumps as it is one of the easiest strategies to help clear your mind so you can focus. The technique is simple: Grab a piece of paper and begin writing down everything that comes to mind that you need to do regardless of what area of your life it falls into. Challenging yourself to do this for 5–10 minutes and across the following areas can not only uncover those top-of-mind tasks but also those items that you have been subconsciously keeping track of:
- Personal
- Professional/Work
- Family/Relationships
- Finances
- Career
- Personal Development
- Mental Well-being
I use this strategy any time that I am feeling overwhelmed and at the beginning of the week when I am doing my weekly planning.
Weekly & Daily Planning
Weekly planning is a great way to increase your focus. It allows you to look at the big tasks that you have for the week and when you plan to address those tasks.
Each day, start your day not by jumping into your phone or into your email messages. Instead, spend the start of your day planning the top 3–4 priorities that you need to get done. Focusing on getting the most important things done sets you up for to achieving what matters most to you.
Manage notifications
Our technology has made life easier and infinitely more difficult. Download any app and you’ll be prompted to allow alerts, notifications, and emails. On the iphone you can adjust your notifications settings to turn off these badges and sounds. You can also turn off notifications by swiping left on any notification and then selecting Manage to adjust your notification settings. Do Not Disturb can also be used to set times when you want to mute different aspects of your phone. I recommend checking out this article from HowToGeek for more tips.
If you use Microsoft Windows, you can also turn on Focus Assist on your computer. I’ve found the tool incredibly helpful as I can set it to priority only for individuals I want to be able to contact me or for important emails I am waiting on, or I can set it to alarms only. You can find out more here.
Track your Time
One of the best ways to improve your focus is to understand where and how you are spending your time. While I use a device called Timular, you can use your calendar or apps like Hours to track how you are spending your time. Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 hours: You Have More Time Than You Think You Do, recommends tracking your time for 2–3 weeks to get a good feel for where your time goes. You can even check out her time tracking challenge.
I also recommend turning on tracking on your iPhone using Screen Time. Each week, you get a report of how much time you spend on your phone versus the previous week as well as how much time was spent in each app. Our entire family turned it on and after seeing how much time she was spending in TikTok, my teenage daughter deleted the app. (Yep, it can have that much of an impact!)
Use the Pomodoro Method
The Pomodoro Method is a proven technique for developing your focus. Coined by Francesco Cirillo, the technique uses a timer (in his case a tomato timer — pomodoro is tomato in Italian) set for 25 minutes of focus followed by a 5-minute break. You can the timer for any duration you want, but the key is that you are breaking up your time between focused sessions and breaks to clear your mind.
If you’re new here…
We are on a journey to helping you Become the CEO of You so that you can become the best version of yourself. Over the course of the month, we’ll cover knowing yourself, creating goals, adopting mindsets, embracing habits, and practicing self-care. You can find all the posts in our publication Living to Learn. You can also find my random musings on my personal page here.
