Have you been struggling to keep your focus on something that you know is important to you? Do you come into a situation when you know what you have to do but at the end of the day you are just not able to achieve it?
You realise that you do have the inherent motivation, but then, for whatever reason, that inherent motivation doesn’t translate into external action. Maybe even if it does, it maybe sporadic in nature. This is very common problem being faced by most of the people these days, even with the high performers!!
How many times have you woken up in the day with a very clear agenda for the day, but even before you get onto your work desk, something else or someone else takes away your attention. At times we get crippled by too much of a data and too many actions to be done.
That’s where the principles of how to work with distracted brain comes into action
- Understand the difference between external stimulus and internal drive.
Living in this society, we are constantly in a stimulated by the external environment. The way to counter this is to resist or completely separate yourself from these external stimuli and completely tune into your internal compass. Some ways to achieve it- have clear self-boundaries with others. Put hard measures on when and how would you use your phones. There are certain hours of a day when you get to use your phones, for the other part of the day, keep your phones away. When you don’t see it, you will not intake that extra data in your mind. So, move away from all such things that you know may distract your brains so that you get to focus on a single task that you may want to complete at that particular time.
However, we also need a good external boundary. Since we live in a social setting, even if your boundaries are set, people will end up giving you data and information that you don’t need. There maybe some reality that you don’t wish to get associated with. This leads to our second principle-
2. In today’s set up it is a hardcore difficulty for us to have a straight focus of even 2 continuous hours over our given tasks. This all has to be scheduled. Its more difficult when your decision-making responsibilities are more.
intensify your focus on all of that 30, 20 or 15 mins and do everything that is needed to deliver that task. To add, with introduction of AI tools in our work, a lot of work can now also be completed in a smaller window of time. This is the way of working smart. This states that if you reframe your focus, you will be able to utilise this focus a lot better. Focus now means that can you get a set of tasks done with all your intention in a given small period of time.