Now more than ever, our world is full of distractions!
With more and more technology and immediate communication ever at our fingertips, it’s easy to stay connected and up-to-speed at all times. We’re often busy all day, always doing something, always multi-tasking.
You know what I’m talking about, you’ve done it too – eating a blueberry muffin while listening for your order to be called out at Starbucks while responding to an email from your boss on your smartphone in between text messages to a coworker, all while carrying on small-talk with the person next to you in line.
Whoa – take a breath! What about those times when you need to avoid distractions and really focus on something important?
Whether it’s work-related or something at home, sometimes we need to “un-hook,” slow-down, and really focus on an important project. So how do we do it? How do we really buckle-down and say “no” to the daily distractions we take for granted?
In a recent blog post titled 7 Ways to Get Super-Focused When You Need It, Michael Hyatt shares some tips that work for him:
- Give yourself a deadline
- Get a good night’s sleep
- Eat the right foods
- Listen to the right music
- Eliminate distractions
- Focus on one task
- Take periodic breaks
Hyatt expounds on each tip, explaining how deadlines, sleep, food, music, breaks, distraction elimination, and taking it one task at a time all affect his ability to focus effectively and achieve more. He makes several great points about the benefits of the above tips, emphasizing the need to focus on just one thing at a time to really be effective:
“Multi-tasking is a myth. In fact, it’s impossible. What you are really doing is serial tasking—shifting from one task to another. The problem is that this actually destroys productivity. It is sometimes necessary but never efficient. When you are trying to focus, you need to work on one task at a time and set everything else aside.”
Every person desiring to achieve greater success needs to be able to focus on important tasks. While Hyatt’s tips may or may not work for you, it is absolutely essential that you develop your own list of unique focusing techniques that do work for you. Then – consciously and consistently apply them!
