I have been recently listening to Mind Rules, a book by John Medina. In it he states, “Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth”. Now, you may think that you multitask but what you really do is switch brain tasks based on what we are wanting to perform at any moment in time which can take the brain a large fractions of seconds to switch… You may have your phone in front of you, your computer may be loaded with lots of different screens or browser tabs, and you switch between them constantly…and wonder why you may feel tired at the end of the day, and felt like you have achieved nothing.
I recently got pulled into a room with about half a dozen other people to work on 1 problem…all day! But you know what? If we hadn’t, then we may have been working on the problem a lot longer and with lots more distractions before we found an answer to the problem.
In order to make sense of what I’m saying, think about this. Your mind is a muscle and you need to train your mind to focus.
How you say? Well there are a number of ways to train your brain to focus. I’ll cover these in the next few lines, so stay with me, and don’t go trolling Facebook or answering that text message on your phone while you read!
1) Environment – In today’s world we should be able to work from home if we have an office type job, using the cloud technology. If you can’t, then you need to train at home with something like reading a book, or learning a new ‘thing’ to help you focus on one thing. Oh! and put down that phone!
2) Context – If you are trying to write a document or analyse a spreadsheet, or write an important email, don’t have your phone too handy, and don’t switch to your other emails while you do this. Set time aside in your calendar to do these other tasks at set times, or when you have completed what you were working on.
3) Schedule – If you schedule or plan your tasks to be performed at certain times of the day, people or work colleagues DO get used to when you respond and don’t keep pestering you for that quick answer.
4) Tasks – Stick to one thing you are doing, and if someone interrupts, kindly ask them to come back or send you an email and you will get to it once you have finished what you are doing. I had a friend who only came online and answered emails after 3pm every day. While this can be annoying, it gave him the chance to stick to his set tasks in his calendar and he never missed a deadline!
5) Anchor – Only have the ONE thing on your screen or in front of you that you are working on. It has been said that using background music can help you think. I use Vivaldi and Dire Straits as guitar or stringed instruments seem to help me think. The pitch, tone & timbre help my brain juices flow so that I can get my tasks done with clear focus. Shutdown or remove everything else that is unimportant to you completing that task and anchor yourself!
6) Minimise your auditory, visual, & kinesthetic inputs – Music when you are focusing can be helpful as suggested above. If you have lots of movement around you in an office, or other external noises or are not seated or standing correctly, see if you can change things so that you are both comfortable, and have minimal other inputs.
If you adjust your environment and practice, you may just start getting on top of everything you have on that big to-do list.
Please comment below on how you have found your focus and subscribe and join us for more NLP and Mind Skills to create your Future Now and master your life.