Rediscovering Focus: How I Did It

After years of distractions and poor decision making. I rediscovered the art of focus. I realized that if I did not plant my butt in the chair, I would fall behind in my ambitions. Since October of last year, I have been taking serious action to improve my attention span and my ability to do deep work. I found that focus is a muscle that needs to be trained and the expectation at the beginning must only be to succeed in small amounts. I want to cover a few techniques that worked for me.

Setting small goals

Practice!, the thing that separates winners from losers. Getting away from our previous pattern of distractions is not easy. The focus muscle must be trained with cue, attention and reward. I find that aiming small can be more rewarding at the beginning. Just to explain further only an idiot would walk into a gym and lift the heaviest weights. Overexerting at the start of something new only reduces motivation and our mind assumes that we are not cut out for the task.

In the beginning, I was struggling to focus for more than 15 mins. I slowly increased the time to 30 min sessions and planned more demanding tasks. I emphasize that there is no secret sauce for doing a task.

Organizing tasks based on difficulty

When we make our to-do list it is always essential that we separate tasks based on difficulty. Otherwise, we would do only easy tasks and ignore the difficult ones. I learned the technique of batching tasks from the book “The productivity project” by Chris Bailey.

My daily routine is to create two columns, the first would include all the high-intensity, difficult work and the second would be for low-intensity easy work. The easy work is usually done in one session. The batching of tasks gives us cognitive flow and reduces the reason for switching.

Another reason for batching is “The Zeigarnik effect” which essentially means that unfinished tasks claim more mental energy. This reduces our ability to focus. Suppose I had 3 emails and I only answered 2 of them. I would be more concerned about the 1 unanswered email than my other replies. This is just the way our mind works.

Daily planning

Focus is closely related to satisfaction. Just like how we get a dopamine hit after consuming chocolate, we should aim to get a dopamine hit after an hour of focus. The satisfaction of completing a task motivates me to continue and focus more. So it’s important to breakdown large tasks into smaller ones and even writing down tasks like to-do lists can lead to small dopamine hits when completing a task.

The secret to counter the difficulty in starting a task is scheduling. The art of scheduling is underrated. Books talk about how to focus and eliminate distractions but very few talk about planning.

I like to plan my day using google calendar. Dividing all available time will let you know in advance the tasks that need to be completed and also takes the key activity that stops focus which is decision-fatigue. Stopping to make decisions consumes our energy and we tend to put away starting a task as we have to make a decision.

Cycles of work

It is important to understand the difficulty of work and plan the number of cycles of work. I like to use the Pomodoro technique and work for 25 minutes before taking a 5-minute break. I enter into a deep work state of strong focus I will work for one hour without breaks.

The key is to not doing anything too engaging during the breaks. If your break is more distracting than work then you end up taking more breaks. I also love taking naps, short naps retrigger mental activity. The brain is more receptive to new information after a short nap.

Eliminate distractions

Before starting a task we must plan to block all distractions. I use a website blocker on google chrome to block Youtube, Facebook, Medium (yes medium is addicting). It takes willpower to say no to distractions. Our brain is tuned to look for easy dopamine shots to the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia are responsible for goal-directed behavior. This is another reason to make tasks by associating dopamine satisfaction quotients with them. This is also proved by drugs provided to ADHD patients that focus on improving dopamine levels in the brain.

Repetition is the ultimate skill

There are no magical abilities, binaural beats, essential oils or pills that can make you complete tasks. Repeating easy fixes such as blocking distracting websites, locking your phone ( and turning off notifications) will work. Small changes make a difference but to get better at focus one needs to practice.

Location set up, music and meditation

Our mind is tuned to our surroundings, this makes focus more difficult in places where you often relax. I don’t have to always go to an office to work, my brain automatically identifies coffee shops, libraries and my desk as places of focussed work. When you pack a bag and set up a desk it acts as a cue to your mind to starting focussing.

Similar to a desk setup, a song or a playlist can be a cue to trigger the brain to focus. I learned this technique from Ryan Holiday. I was so distracted when switching between genres or artists, it’s much better to prepare a single playlist or loop your favorite song. I use music to send me into a trance so I can ignore all the distractions. My mind works much better when I am doing two things it gives me purpose and makes me feel responsible.

Long hours of meditation can be tasking to any individual. Meditating a few minutes before starting a task can help in focus. The secret is to focus on your plan and keep pulling the mind back when it wanders.

Tracking hours and working less

I use Toggl to keep track of hours spent on a task, I plan my tasks on google calendar and track tasks using the Toggl timer. I pause the timer if I get distracted this lets me find out the hours spent working. I also note down my distractions and try to avoid them.

Fewer hours of work means better focus. Working efficiently will lead to more downtime with family and friends. 1 hour of deep work is more effective than 3 hours of shallow work. So I believe that this guide will prove to be beneficial to people who struggle to stay focused. I encourage everyone who reads this article to not focus on problems but on the endless possibilities to achieve your goals.