Improving Focus: Get Things Out of Your Head!
When I want to focus on a task, I want to dedicate all of my mental energy to working on that task.
After five minutes, a little voice reminds me about something in my life unrelated to the task at hand. Doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, getting ready for next meal, something important with a person I know, etc.
As soon as this happens, I lose my focus - I start to think about what the voice says. I start thinking about the new task instead of the one I want to focus on.
When I was younger, I could handle this little voice - the main reason is that the tasks were small or inconsequential if I miss them. As I am older (and have more dependents), these tasks are bigger and have consequences if I miss them!
Problem is - the voice is constant! Even now as I am writing, there’s lots of things coming up about not writing this post.
Ignoring that voice is not an option, because there will be consequences (then the voice says: “HA! Told you so!”) or it will just keep repeating.
When you want to remain focused, the best thing to do is record those tasks from that voice so you can address them. Let that voice inside you know its important and you will address its concerns later, say 25 minutes later.
There are different ways to record it - my favorite way right now is the Getting Things Done way. Which way you choose won’t matter to me, the important thing is to have a system that your voice believes you will follow up on (otherwise, it will yell again.)
This is the best way to stay focused: get things out of your head so you can focus on the current task.
With less things going on in your head, the more of your head you can use to solve the task.
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