“The Indispensable first step to getting
things you want our of life is this:
decide what you want.”
Ben Stein
I suspect for the most part we all are able to focus sometimes, how often that sometimes rolls around is something only we know for ourselves. I have days of great focus followed by weeks of bouncing my head of my desk and into any closed door I happen to pass by, does that make sense?
It can be hugely frustrating to know what I want to accomplish or where I want to go with an idea only to end up popping some corn and staring out a window wishing I had a cigarette even though it’s been over 20 years since I quit. Cigarettes used to help give me focus, if you can believe that. I’d go outside and lean again the side of a building, lean against a tree or lamppost and smoke a couple of cigarettes while I corralled my ideas into a workable form. It worked well for me and after I quit smoking it was years before I found I could approximate the focus gained from smoking by staring blankly out a window, rainy days are best.
If you find yourself caught up in your own thoughts more often than you’d like or maybe distractions seems to gravitate to your desk with way more to say about something you could care less about, then perhaps engaging in a mindfulness practice or possibly taking a class in How To Do One Thing At A Time (that’s a mouthful) is what will work best for you. There are paths for each of us that will give us more focus to help you decide what you want and once you’ve done that paths to go out and get it.
10 Ways To Increase Your Focus
Focus, Attention, Concentration and Mindfulness are very familiar words in this early part of the 21st century. A huge part of their importance is because we are surrounded by a growing amount of distractions and noise in our work and in our home lives.
To gain a handle on and strengthen your ability to Focus it's probably a good ideas to read a few articles about focusing. I could easily create a list of things to do but as is often the case unless we spend time learning something deeply change rarely lasts.
I've collected what I think is a diverse group of articles on Focusing and Doing One Things At A Time. You'll also find a free book you can download called Focus by Leo Babauta listed at number 6.
I hope you find all these articles and books enjoyable and helpful in getting you to a place of abundant focus.
Source: https://www.whatisdialogue.com/decide-what-you-want-focus/
The moment you get effortlessly lost in work goes by any number of names: focus, concentration, escapism, flow, and countless others. It's the point where you're able to blur the world around you and calibrate your brain to pay attention to one single task. It's your sweet spot. It's when you Get Things Done. Your entire cognitive effort is concentrated on one task and when you're in that moment the outside world disappears.
The good news is you can train your brain to focus better by incorporating mindfulness exercises throughout your day. Based on our experience with thousands of leaders in over 250 organizations, here are some guidelines for becoming a more focused and mindful leader.
Do you find yourself getting to the end of the day and wondering where the time went? Maybe you started out prepared to accomplish some very specific tasks, but somehow you just didn't get to them.
How many times have you sat at your desk and tried to focus on a task, only to find that your mind is wandering? Despite your best intentions, you just can't concentrate.
In a world of distraction, it's too easy to lose focus. As a result we get hardly anything important done. Here are 11 sure-fire ways to reclaim your focus and
This book, “focus”, is by Leo Babauta, creator of zen habits and mnmlist. It was written publicly, online, in small bursts, with feedback from readers throughout the writing process. It would be much worse without their wonderful help
And yet, we let it slip. We end up eating lunch in front of the TV with our laptop open. We browse Twitter and Facebook while sending emails and chatting in multiple Gchat windows. We know we really should be focusing on just that one assignment, blog post, proposal or piece of code but we just can’t.
Reality check: We live in a busy world where a million things are happening at once. For many of us, multitasking is a way to keep up with the grind. From checking email at brunch with friends to finishing a status report during a staff meeting, a lot of us are trying to accomplish a lot—all at the same time.
It happens to all of us: you’re working away on something you’ve got to get done, and suddenly you realize that for quite some time you’ve been lost in a reverie about something else entirely. You don’t know when your mind went off track, nor how long you’ve been meandering down this one.
New research reveals what happens in a wandering mind—and sheds light on the cognitive and emotional benefits of increased focus.
Thinking, Fast and Slow gives deep--and sometimes frightening--insight about what goes on inside our heads: the psychological basis for reactions, judgments, recognition, choices, conclusions, and much more.