Focus Time

One of the reasons it takes me so long to do something, or why I don’t get it done at all, is because I am doing multiple things at once. I multi-task because it’s easy to do, because I bore easily, because the pandemic whittled my attention span down, and because I get dopamine hits from engaging in most of the activities I multi-task with. 

I am acutely aware of how wonderful mindfulness and presence is, no matter where I am. So even in mundane places like grocery store lines and elevator rides I am trying to be more single focused and allow the urge to check my email to pass. 

But I am even more aware of how multi-tasking negatively impacts what I want to accomplish. If I want to focus on getting something done but I leave my phone on, it’s probably going to take me twice the amount of time that it would if I put my phone on do not disturb. As in, I won’t be focused at all. Not to mention multi-tasking is overstimulating and exhausting and keeps my attention span short.

That’s why I now commit to focusing on one thing at a time for at least one task a day. I mark this on my calendar with a color, so that I know it’s time to put my phone away, close out all my browsers, and focus. My goal is to standardize the time of day this focus occurs so that I can set my phone to automatically go into focus-mode. #nerdgoals 

You can implement focus time too: if there’s something that is important for you to do, limit all distractions. And I mean all distractions. Put your phone on do not disturb, maybe even in another room. Close your office door (or put on noise cancelling headphones) and pause your inbox. If other folks are around, let them know not to interrupt you. You can even put a sign up (I used to put a post-it-note on my monitor so my coworkers knew not to bother me). 

This is really simple advice that is very, very hard to follow. But attempting to follow it, even if you fail, will get you farther than not trying at all.