The Worst Kept Secret of Success

One of worst kept secrets of success is the power of focus.

We live in a society that loves to distract us. You no longer have to wait for a commercial to find out what’s on next on the television - an announcement of the next big show will pop up on the bottom of the screen, complete with animation to be sure that you’ve noticed it. Where I live, it can sometimes be a struggle just to get into the grocery store without someone wanting to talk to you about impeaching one of our political leaders or lending a hand to people who are down and out. With cell phones, PDA’s, instant messaging, and all of the other tools of communication that we’ve come up with, people can interrupt you on a whim.

If you want to be successful, you’ll need to learn to stay focused. It isn’t really very difficult, but you may need to make some changes to your thinking and behavior in order to achieve it. Here are some suggestions:

Learn to Accept Distractions

Not accept as in allow them all in - accept as in “it is what it is.” People are going to distract you, and it just becomes even more of a distraction when it gets under your skin. When you allow your own emotions to become more of a distraction than the 30 second cell phone call, your productivity can take a real hit. When something does show up while you are focused on something else, make the decision immediately to defer it until later or to completely forget about it.

Turn Off Your Phone, Email, and Instant Messaging

Simply because someone wants to communicate with you, you are under no obligation to reciprocate. I’m not talking about complete isolation here, but when you are working on a project that demands your attention, the last thing you need are ringing phones and flashing windows on your computer distracting you. Voicemail works just fine for many communications, and your email isn’t going anywhere (no matter how much you want it to!). Just be sure that you take the time to stay on top of these things, or the tug of “What’s in there now?” can become a distraction in and of itself.

Stop Multitasking

If you consider the millions of pieces of information that are flowing into our minds every day, and the fact that our conscious minds are only able to focus on one thing at a time, it’s pretty amazing that we are able to focus on anything at all.

Our conscious minds can only focus on one thing at a time. It may seem like some people can do multiple tasks at once, but what they are really doing is one of two things - they are either “fast-switching” between tasks, which gives the appearance doing more than one thing at a time, or they are using the power of habit with one of the tasks, and therefore not consciously focusing on it at all.

If you think about a computer, it can sometimes seems like your PC can do multiple things at once (playing an MP3, displaying a Word document, receiving an email)… but unless it has more than one processing chip (the computer’s brain), it really isn’t - it’s just switching back and forth between doing one thing at a time rapidly.

It’s the same with us. Our conscious minds can only do one thing at a time, and every time you try to focus on more than that one thing, you lose a little bit of your power of focus. Decide what you want to be focused upon, and do only that.

Use Specific Times for Planning and Reflection

One of the things that has helped me immensely when my own brain gets “scattered and splattered” is pausing for a moment and saying to myself “Where am I Now? What am I working on Now?” Many times, my brain has veered off into the realm of the past (regret about what happened yesterday), or the future (worry about what might happen tomorrow.) Those two little bugaboos can kill your today. There’s productive reflection and goal setting, and then there’s regret and worry. Make your reflection and planning distinct activities, and you’ll know that when they pop up in the middle of preparing that report for work, you can remind yourself that now is not the time.

Live in Day Tight Compartments

This one comes from a couple of different sources, and is related to the previous suggestion. One of the first things people recovering from addictions are taught is the benefit of living “One Day At A Time.” The “Living in Day Tight Compartments” wording comes from “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie.

While the ideal is to live Right Now, as human beings the current Right Now is flowing into the next Right Now, and the next Right Now, and the next Right Now. The Now is not something you can hold on to. When you decide to live in day tight compartments, it goes a long way toward eliminating much of those distractions that can pop up in your own head that were mentioned earlier.

Keep a List

Do your best to always have an easy way of recording your thoughts as they pop into your head. When I’m working at the computer, my personal favorite is Google Desktop’s Scratch Pad Gadget, while away from it a small notebook and a pen and paper do a great job. While you are doing what you are doing Now, and things pop into your head, jot them down. This has the benefit of telling your brain “I’ve got it, you don’t have to worry about this right now.” Then, get back to what you are working on.

Practice Focusing

One of the biggest benefits I’ve experienced since I started meditating is an increased ability to focus. Fifteen minutes of meditation seems to add two hours to my day, which isn’t a bad return on investment. Those extra hours come from the increase in focus that meditation gives me. Learning to watch your own breath, and the practice of gently bringing your mind back to that breath when it wanders, does wonders for your ability to concentrate the rest of the day.

What do you do that helps you to focus? I’d love to hear your own suggestions. Be sure to leave them in the comments section so that all of us can benefit.

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