Where Focus Goes, Energy Flows
10 Ways to Increase Our Engagement & Focus
Photograph by Getty Images via Unsplash
Focus is a point of attraction, attention, or activity.
Focus is an access point.
Focus joins perception, reasoning, learning, decision-making, and memory, and it is a critical tool for personal and professional success. Focus is fundamental to how we spend our days, what we accomplish, and who we become. Research shows that improving one’s focus increases engagement and performance, increases momentum, improves quality, and ups efficiency. Improved focus reduces stress in the workplace, and is correlated with increased personal and professional opportunities.
Ten Ways to Improve Our Focus, Engagement, and Our Health
Looking for real-world steps that will improve your focus? Try this!
Prioritize sleep: Frame the workday as beginning the night before when it’s time to rest. Invest in peace of mind, and in your mental and physical health by making night-before sleep a prioritized part of your next-day work day.
Exercise 3 to 5 times each week: Exercising to the point of rigor clears the mind, stimulates thinking, and refreshes perspective. If you haven’t worked out for some time or ever, start small. Dress three mornings a week, do some light stretching, then jog one minute/walk three, jog one minute/walk three, for 20 minutes. Over time and bit by bit, toggle the ratio of jogging to walking. Nothing beats purposeful, ongoing movement for mental clarity and improved focus.
Create Secluded Work and Thinking Spaces: To the extent possible, create a pleasingly-lit space that’s separated from busyness, clatter, and other people. Then, take steps to eliminate distractions, including breaking news, buzzing phones, bored co-workers, etc…
Ritualize work/thinking periods by taking a few deep breaths before diving into your work. Listen to a particular composer’s music, prepare a particular tea, or use a special set of pens that you reserve for work-time only.
Prioritize important work over urgent work: Important work routinely is pushed aside by so-called urgent work. While we must at times put out fires as they erupt, that is often not the case. Realize that we encounter both important and urgent things daily. In almost every instance, make it a habit to do what’s long-term important first.
Time-block your day and schedule more time that you think you’ll need: Schedule out your day in blocks of time, designating particular days of the week for specific tasks. Findings show that people routinely overestimate what they can accomplish in an hour, day or week, and routinely underestimate what they can accomplish over the course of five or ten years.
Take breaks when needed: A quick walk or cup of coffee between work periods of 45 to 75minutes refreshes the body, mind, and our interest. On a larger scale, make use of vacation and time-off. Periodic change of routine and environment can bring marked health and focus benefits.
Experiment with diet and personal habits: Cigarettes, alcohol, and highly-processed products, including greasy, salty, refined, or sugary foods, zap our energy and momentum. Tiny upgrades in terms of what we consume can positively affect our capacity to concentrate.
Spend time with yourself and in nature: Want to shift perspective and increase clarity of thought in a matter of moments? Take a phone-free, electronics-free 3 minutes to sit and clear your mind. For 3 minutes, empty the mind of thoughts. If you become distracted, coral yourself back to clear mind. Spending time in nature is equally effective in increasing our quality of focus. Take a walk and actually note what you see — the canopy of a tree, the color on an insect’s wing, the detail of the park down the street.
Decide what you don’t do. A Don’t-Do list can have an immensely positive effect on focus, character, and career. People routinely categorize tasks and events that are not obligations as obligations. Don’t say yes when you shouldn’t, can’t, or truly don’t care to say yes.
Image by Michael Tucker from Unsplash
Personal growth and professional success go hand in hand, and both are improved when we take steps to prioritize, to manage ourselves, and to improve focus. Research shows that our intuitive first instinct is to notice, engage, cooperate and help. In short, we are wired to be present, to use what we take in, to accomplish, and to work in concert with others. Refining sleep and other personal habits, prioritizing what’s important over what’s urgent, eliminating distractions and preparing our work days and spaces, and actively deciding what we don’t do guides our focus, our behavior, and the identities we seek to adopt.
When we are intentional about that which earns our attention, we make better use of our time, resources and energy. We also position ourselves in more positive ways to handle people, ideas, our careers, and our relationships. Consider the steps outlined above to improve focus, along with mental health, physical health, and personal and professional development.