Focus is so important for our mental health. If we can’t focus, we will likely procrastinate and get behind on our work, leading to more stress and poorer work performance. Being able to focus and be productive in the work place builds a higher self esteem and pride in your work.
In this article we will share 5 top tips that can help you get your focus back on track. Some of these tips will be especially important for remote workers, but all can be applied to any work place.
If you want to read more about understanding stress and the benefits of stress reduction, please see our article here. If you adjust the factors in your life causing stress, work will become much easier and more enjoyable.
When discussing stress, it’s essential to mention the autonomic nervous system. This nervous system is automatic and controls your heart rate, digestion, blood pressure, metabolism, urination and defecation, along with other crucial processes. Within the autonomic nervous system, there are two divisions: the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.
When we are stressed, we enter into the sympathetic nervous system which increases our heart rate in order to escape a perceived threat; within this state, we are unlikely to be able to focus or concentrate on work or wider work related activities . Whilst the sympathetic system can serve a purpose, It is important to move back to the parasympathetic nervous system again, in order to relax the body after this period of heightened stress. This system provides the foundation for increased creativity and encourages a state of flow within our work practices, as a result, increasing our overall focus and ability to effectively carry out our roles. Please see the image below to find out a little more about both of these states.
If we are too stressed we cannot work at our optimum levels and focus will be impaired. Visa versa, if we are too relaxed it will again be hard to focus, as we might feel bored or not have enough stimulation to get working. It's good to find a balance at work in order to reach our peak performance. The image below shows how a healthy amount of stress can be conducive for work, but too much or too little can be damaging.
There are a lot of different suggestions about how long the perfect time to work is before taking a break. It's important to play around with a few different times and see what works perfectly for you. It might also be good to have different methods for different days, depending on your mood, concentration levels and how much you've slept.
Most research tends to suggest though that taking breaks short and often can in fact improve your focus throughout the day. Studies show that 90 minutes is approximately the amount of time that we can concentrate for before needing to take a break. Although, that particular study was created before smart phones were invented!
The Pomodoro method is a great one to start if you haven't tried this method before. This method is found all over the internet and there are several online timers to help you along the way. This might be great for achieving those tasks that you don't feel motivated about, to give you an extra push in the right direction.
Each 25 minute work segment is referred to as a tomato! A fun way of visualising your work segments.
This tip is focussed on us remote workers, because office environments are usually already set up in a way to help you focus (besides those stories from lingering co-workers!)
In Gretchen Rubin’s book on habits, Better than Before, we find out that when setting new habits, environmental methods are just as important as psychological methods. In practice, what this means is simply making your environment work for you in advance.
If you have 50 tabs open and you're trying to do everything at once, it's hard to focus. Focus means placing your attention on to one thing, and doing it before starting another task.
In the morning, it's great to create a to-do list and prioritise your tasks according to your own methods. If this works for you, you can prioritise according to:
After completing those most important and urgent tasks, you can get cracking with anything else on your to-do list- even if those tasks seem more fun.
If that doesn't float your boat, another way of increasing focus is to create a cascade effect, by focussing on small quick wins first thing in the morning. Once you've ticked off some of these quick wins and are filled with dopamine, you might find yourself more motivated to make a start on the larger, more important or more urgent tasks that you have been putting off.
Sitting down all day isn't great for our concentration levels. There are theories to suggest that our brains have evolved in line with movement, so the connection goes back a long way. We have a whole other blog post on this, which you can read here. It's so nice, we mentioned it twice.
Exercise increases your natural levels of dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline which can in turn, help increase concentration, focus and happiness at work. It's really hard to get started for some people though, which is why everything counts! Including a walk, a 10 minute online video or choosing the stairs rather than taking a lift.
At HubGem, we give everyone at work a free membership to Headspace. Headspace is a fantastic meditation App with daily suggestions. It also has sections on movement, yoga, focus, music and meditations to help you sleep. Meditation is proven to help increase focus at work, and is a great way to reduce stress.
Every quarter, each employee is allowed a Wednesday afternoon off to spend time doing well-being-related activities. This could be anything, from cleaning the whole house to going on a long walk, or simply spending time with loved ones. Taking time away from the desk, helps to increase focus when you're back at work.
On top of this, we have a Wellbeing Slack Channel, well-being check-ins and Zen sessions with our HR & Culture manager.
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