Unable to focus? Let’s forget about it
We spend more than half of our lives listening to the word yelling at us: “focus”. The parents preach it, the teachers claim it, the bosses demand it, and your co-workers or high school mates seem to have it dominated. And you can’t? Neither you or anyone.
What does it really mean to be focused?
Concentration is a process that requires a lot of time and mental effort to get it completely. A time that none of us has throughout our stressful days.
But keep calm, not suffer, I bring you up the solution: forget the term concentration. Let’s replace the need to focus on something until getting the total abstraction of the rest of the world for “falling in love” with the task or “entertain” with it for a certain time.
Yes, yes, I said fall in love, at least for 35 minutes.
-this is how I managed my time guys and why this changed my way of working-
I have tried for a whole year different ways to carry out what I have said before. In the end, I managed to control my time and be much more productive. Everything is based on not being all the time aware of the need to concentrate and act instead.
There are hundreds of app that help you design these kinds of saving time plans for your work. I use one where I can mark the amount of time I want to be concentrated. What this application does is to control if I unlock my phone or pay attention to some other app. In case this happens, it’s over, the countdown will go forward but it will determine that my performance has been bad for being distracted.
I usually work in periods of 35 minutes -this is a matter of going testing yourself and your abilities, not every day you will want to work the same-. Then I always make breaks for 5 to 7 minutes and start again.
Also, the coolest thing about this type of apps is the gamification of the time. In my case, depending on the time I keep concentrate trees or shrubs appears!!! This way I’m creating my own forest as a visual representation of my effort. You can also see how many achievements you have in your forests daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly. When I distract myself or use the phone while the countdown is underway, not on the breaks, the trees I’m creating die.
This kind of resources helps you to be focused on very specific periods of time that you set up beforehand. No one forces you to work. I believe this app works much better with students as they organize study time and work at home on their own. Not based on a business agenda.
The second thing you must remember is always to be honest with yourselves. If you need to work only 20 minutes and rest 10 is fine. If you think you can take 1 hour doing the same thing on a good level, go for it. But don’t be sad if you fail. Try it again. You will learn how to measure your time with as many tests as you need. Get to know your limits and try to push a bit on them so you will get better results.
There will be a day you work more and others less. There will be days that you don’t even want to read the exercise. But after all, do not let the term concentration control you. It is just a single standard of segmentation created to determine the good ones and the bad ones. Have your own term with your measures, and only then, you will be truly productive.
