Fresh Focus On Productivity!™

Many of you are struggling constantly in an effort to be more productive.  You’ve giving up the extra hour of television, you’ve purchased a planner, and likely there’s a calendar in every room as well.  Time seems to move faster than it’s supposed to and your list doesn’t seem to shrink.

If that’s you, I’m going to lay stake that you’re doing it wrong.  You are not being more productive, just more frustrated.

Focus is about time.  Jumping tasks every few hours might even be too frequent for some of you, for others an hour is an eternity.  The truth is that the length of time to focus on one task varies from person to person. There is no shame in being totally locked in for two hours on a task and taking no prisoners to get it. Make note of your prime attention span and plan for it.

Focus requires isolation.  Isolation doesn’t have to mean locking yourself in a soundproof room, driving out to the middle of the desert, or going to the mountains.  Isolation is not just about blocking out the noise and interruptions, it’s about finding your ideal environment.  Sitting in a quiet room or one with background noise works different for each person. Some can be isolated with loud music playing, others even a breeze disturbs.  Find your level of noise, music, and buzz that becomes effectively the white noise that you can ignore and block out. Create that environment.

Focus requires sacrifice. Real focus requires the exclusion of all else.  Maximum focus isn’t just achieved by setting aside time, nor creating a friendly environment, it’s about the willingness to sacrifice doing anything else while you work that task.  Here what’s different about people is their willingness to make that sacrifice.  Here is where it’s not about person comfort, it’s about what works.  Sacrifice doesn’t mean you’ve given up on the other things, it doesn’t mean you don’t respect their importance, nor are you making a statement about someone’s importance to you.  It means you are giving the task in front of you the respect it deserves, the same respect you’ll give the next task.

You can get the right headphones, find the right place, set the schedule and find the right time, but if you aren’t willing to sacrifice, you won’t truly be productive.  Sacrificing is really about giving yourself permission to not worry about anything else but the task at hand.  In the end it’s very freeing but you have to realize that ultimately it’s you that has to choose and commit.

You can’t always set your priorities but you can always choose to one thing and give it the best attention you can.

Turn off email, or at least the notifications, while you are working on something. Give email it’s own time and place, you’ll be rewarded.

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