How to stay focused? 13 proven methods discussed

How to stay focused in this world full of distractions? This question can be easy or hard to answer bearing in mind the status of the world. If you are not able to focus you will not have the best productivity.

Productivity depends much on an undivided mind. The more you can focus, the more productive you are. Staying on one activity at a time can be more challenging because destructions are just an inch away.

Facebook notifications, messages, WhatsApp, emails, and others are greatly affecting work. Some companies do not allow employees to enter work with mobile phones. They are not strict, they just know how to improve productivity. Smart guys!

Think about your daily activities, how often do you get distracted? What is your working rate per day? When you take a close look, you will find that on the days in which you are less distracted, you work more.

Critical reasons why you should stay focused

• Improves quality. Staying focused on one particular activity improves the quality of service or goods produced.
• Improves productivity. More focus on work increases the volume due to lesser distractions.
• Creates a routine. Focusing on one activity can help to create a daily routine which is a good thing. The mind and body are aware of what to do, when, and how.
• Improves time management. When it comes to work, time management is a key factor to success. When you are fully focused on one task you complete it faster than having low focus.
• Focusing helps in reducing errors. We often get errors while working which could have been avoided if we were more focused.
• Helps you to think clearly. This is because there are no external disturbances so the chances of thinking are higher.
• Reduces stress. When you are more focused on a task, you don’t get stressed by unfinished projects.

I’m sure you are longing to know how you can get the above benefits. Don’t worry, I got your back.

Assignment: I need you to focus fully on this. Here are the 13 ways to help you stay focused.

1. Practise mindfulness

Mindfulness is a mental state which can be achieved by focusing more on the current situation. Bringing your mind to the current task you are handling can greatly help you to focus.

Mindfulness is something that can be done anytime, anywhere. The only resource you need is your mind plus a thought or a task to be able to practice mindfulness.

When I was young, I used to do mindfulness meditation without knowing what exactly I was doing. It’s until now that I noticed that I was meditating mindfully. Clap for me hehe…

Let me say that I loved adventure. I would sit down and think of a journey from town A to town B. Visualizing all the slopes, corners, rivers, and mountains along that road. I made sure that my mind doesn’t get distracted along the way and I felt good about it.

That was just a practical example of mindfulness. Guess what, I still do it to date. Now that I know it’s mindfulness I would now focus it on more things around me.

Mindfulness is a great meditation tool that can help you to be more focused.

2. Sleep adequately

I’m sure there must be nights when you have slept late at night. How can you say was your mood the following day? You can’t lie to me, I know you were definitely in a funk.

You can never do anything constructive when you have not had enough sleep. Once you have a good sleep, you wake up more fresh and determined to do more work.

I would encourage you to have a sleeping pattern and don’t break it. For instance, I have a pattern of sleeping at 2100hrs and waking up at 0400hrs. Developing a sleeping pattern helps you to sleep adequately.

When your sleeping time comes, you will automatically start dozing off. The same thing happens when your time to wake up comes, you can wake up without an alarm.

This should tell you that our bodies are designed to learn. You only need to train yourself and you will be good to go. Sleeping adequately has a number of good outcomes, so I encourage you to sleep well from now onwards.

There is nothing bad like feeling sleepy in the middle of a task. That’s why I’m encouraging you to have enough sleep. You will be more focused during the daytime, hence more productivity.

3. Have a to-do list

A to-do list is a list of activities that you should undertake during a certain period. You can have to do a list of daily, weekly, or monthly activities.

A To-do list is very important in organizing work. You can organize to start with the most difficult tasks when your mind is entirely fresh in the morning.

When you have a bunch of activities in front of you, you will be able to commit yourself to work. Again, your list should be realistic, don’t push yourself beyond limits, it’s unhealthy.

A to-do list will help you to stay focused on your goals. The sweetness of work is completed.

4. Take short breaks

Too much work is not good for your health. It’s always advisable to take short breaks during work. That’s why we have tea breaks and lunch breaks even at big companies. I told you that entrepreneurs are smart guys. They know that when you work too much without a break you will produce poor quality goods or services.

Taking short breaks relaxes the body and mind. The outside environment from work can help you to think of ideas. When you are back to work, your mind will be sober again to stay focused.

Short breaks can be characterized by taking a short distance nature walk, or taking tea or lunch. It can also consist of talking with colleagues or even strangers. It can also be taking a sunburst. Just do anything to relax your mind and get focused on the other tasks of the day.

5. Take small amounts of caffeine

Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive drug in the entire world. It’s a natural stimulant that can be found in tea, coffee, and other beverages.

Apart from making you stay focused, caffeine helps in breaking body fat. It’s commonly found in natural drugs for burning excess fat in the body.

I remember we used to drink coffee while at school before night preps to help us not to be sleepy. It was a dangerous opinion but it usually worked miracles.

Caffeine should just be taken in small quantities. when taken uncontrollably, it can cause sleeping disorders which is not good for your health.

6. Try the Pomodoro technique

This is a time management criterion that was invented by Francesco Cirillo. This technique helps you to set a timer for a particular task. Once the set time elapses, you should stop at once and assess your work

The Pomodoro method is a good tool to make you focus on one task at a time. It’s also enjoyable as you practice it.

7. Avoid distractions

Distraction is anything or anyone that can make you deviate from your original goal. Distraction is the major obstacle between you and staying focused.

Take a notebook and write down all the distractions making you not complete daily tasks. I’m pretty sure that social media is on top of the list.

Social media is good, especially for forming and maintaining relationships. But when it comes to working hours it’s the first thing that lowers productivity. Nowadays you can know all the breaking news on social media without watching television or reading a newspaper.

Again, a lot of jokes are shared on social media pages. Tell me whether you can fully concentrate when you can access social media while at work. The answer is a big NO.

There are other distractions like regretting past mistakes and overthinking about the future. Regret will never correct any mistakes that we may have done before.

Regrets can never allow you to focus on anything. The same happens when worrying about the future.

Choose to cut off all distractions that can make you not stay focused.

8. Limit multitasking

Multitaskers are considered to be people who can handle several tasks at the same time. They can be having a very high concentration rate which makes it possible for them to multitask.

Multitasking has a lot of disadvantages which include:

• In some instances, it lowers the quality. This is due to the divided attention to different tasks.
• Shifting from one task to another affects memory. This can result in damage to one task. You will forget some tasks. For instance, let’s say you are cooking while washing clothes. When you leave the meal in the cooker, you may come back and find it burned.
• Chances of having anxiety are high. This is because the mind will be soo occupied with small tasks which will be eventually overwhelming.
• Increased mistakes. Many times, multitasking causes more mistakes.

Multitasking is a very risky initiative to take. If you have no other r helping hand around, don’t try it at home.

10. Set deadlines

Setting realistic deadlines can highly help you to stay focused on your activities. Before you set any deadlines, you should first assess your ability to work. This will help you to set deadlines that you can achieve.

Failure to meet deadlines can be so discouraging. Once you know you can achieve deadlines, you can go ahead and set them.

Knowing what you want to achieve makes you stay focused on the set goal. Write down your goals and the maximum time you should take to accomplish them.

Make sure you read your goals calendar every morning and every evening. This will makes you more focused on what strategies you will be using to accomplish your goals.

 11. Have a clean working environment

A clean working environment improves workplace morale. Can you imagine working near a dustbin or in an office where papers are scattered all over?

A dirty working environment is not conducive to productivity. You will be focused on avoiding the bad smell rather than getting focused on work.

Chairs and tables are the number one cause of injury in an office. A clean environment reduces the chances of accidents because all things will be in their respective places.

12. Write down all upcoming ideas

It’s normal for ideas to pop up when you are in the middle of your task. The best thing to do is to write them down and continue with your work. After you complete the tasks at hand you can go back to your ideas and work on them too.

This will help you to focus on one thing hence improving the quality of work.

13. Turn off all notifications

Notifications are a big way to distract you from focusing on a task. It can be notifications of emails, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, or any other social media notifications.

If you want to avoid distractions turn off all notifications and if possible keep your phone away. This is why I said that many companies don’t permit mobile phones during work.

You should set a specific time of

Bottom line

To improve your focusing power p, you need to be dedicated to sticking to a daily routine.

Train your mind to stay focused on one particular thing at a specific time.

You can only get the benefits associated with staying focused If only you put into action all the 13 ways. Take a closer look at all the big investors and inventors in the world. You’ll find that they have always been focused and that’s what fuels their success.

You are not limited to big success just stay focused on what you are doing. Do what fits well with your routine. . . I know you are still here because you want to succeed.

All the best as you put effort to stay focused.