Win Your Day Key #3: The Power of Focus
KEY POINTS:
1. The third key to mastering your day is the Power of Focus.
2. You can train your brain to become more focused by simply bringing your attention and concentration into the here and now.
3. Anytime you feel like you’re losing focus you can incorporate mindfulness into your workday by repeating a mantra, counting your breaths, or simply focusing on your breath. Or just take a break :-).
“Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”
Key 3: The Power of Focus
During Power Work, you must focus to the best of your ability. Mindfulness training is a great first step on the path to increased focus. Mindfulness is an awareness of the world around you in the here and now. Practicing it involves simply taking time every day to put yourself in a location where you’re completely undistracted and focusing on one thing. You can recite a mantra, count your breaths, or simply focus on your breathing. Anytime you notice your mind wandering, bring it back to that one task. This is done without judgment—there is no good or bad. You are practicing living in the moment and controlling your attention.
With practice and with time, your mindfulness training will begin to elicit remarkable results. After eight weeks of regular meditation, the neurons and tissues inside the brain responsible for helping us stay focused grow. You will start to notice when you are distracted, which sounds simple but is a challenge to most of us. It will put a stop to ruminating thoughts and help you to stay in the moment, which is critical to performing at your best.
Mindfulness can present a cart-and-horse conundrum for some people. They think they don’t have enough time to practice mindfulness because they are so overwhelmed and stressed. Yet just the act of doing it helps us feel more centered and in control, which leads to better focus and increased efficiency.
This is another area of our lives where technology can be part of the solution. There are many tools available to help you incorporate mindfulness into your routine. Check out apps such as Headspace and Calm. Another option is the app Muse, which works with a headband that picks up brain activity. While wearing it, the user hears water gently crashing on the waves on the beach. As soon as the mind begins to wander, the band picks up the mental activity and changes the sound to storms. The stormy sounds are the user’s cue to refocus. Once the user goes more than thirty seconds with no change in brain activity, the sound changes to birds tweeting and points are awarded.
This Week’s Exercise: The 90 minute rule
Hopefully by now you’ve determined when you are at your most productive and have started blocking off that time for Power Work. Now the question is how long should you Power Work for?
Research shows ninety minutes is typically what the brain can handle before becoming tired. This might be too much for you at first, so see if you can go for thirty minutes without getting distracted or moving on to something else. You can set a timer and during this time, turn off all distractions such as your phone or email.
Another tip to add some fun to your work is to use focus apps such as Forest, where you “plant” trees for an allotted time (your choice), and leaving the app to use your phone will cause the tree to die. As trees accumulate each day, you grow your own forest!
Good luck!
Watch this video where Greg and Bruce discuss the Power of Focus
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.