Recently I heard one of my friends saying “There are so many things on my mind that I am unable to focus on my work. The moment I get to work and sit in front of my computer all my issues come flooding to me. I start thinking of how to solve each one and lose focus on what I am doing at work. I think I really need to do something about it.” The conversation made me realize that this has become a pretty common phenomenon. There are so many distractions around that it has become very easy to succumb to such distractions and lose focus on your work and goals. In the process you are not only risking your job but also letting yourself drift from what you are supposed to do, and steer away from where you are supposed to be, mentally.
Like my friend, if you are looking for ways to improve your focus, here are a few tips that might help:
1)    Create milestones – Break your big goal to focus into smaller and quantitative goals, like staying focused and completing one activity within a set span of time. This is because when your goals are finite and measurable your success also becomes measurable.
2)    Positive reinforcement – For every successful focused activity you can reward yourself. Positive reinforcement and rewarding is a proven technique to motivate people to perform better. You are no exclusion to that principle.
3)    Organize Yourself – Mentally shut all those issues out by physically organizing your activities. Make a list of all the things to do, separate them from the routine/recurring things vs. one time/occasional things. For eg. Paying your electricity bill is a routine thing, while signing your child up for an extra-curricular activity is an occasional thing. Against each item write down the time or deadline for doing it and when you will do it. When you know what activities you are working on and when you are working on them you will not have to worry about them. This may sound like time management, but the real purpose of this is to organize and clear your mind of distractions.
4)    Meditation – Meditation has innumerable benefits. You must have heard a lot of people advice you to practice meditation and they are absolutely right. Meditation helps calm your mind and keep it focused.

By,
Mary-Ann Roche

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Goals and Goal Setting, Personal Development Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.