An Article about a Natural Approach to Gaining Better Focus
This article was forwarded to me from a friend. It is written by Dr. Rob for MSN Health & Fitness. This advice offers a method for improving your concentration that’s not far different than what I’ve been sharing as an expert in helping people increase performance, productivity and satisfaction by decreasing distractions. To view the original article, links and find out more about the author, please follow this link.
Q: I am having difficulty staying focused on my job. I work at a high school and my environment is not library quiet and is often either too hot or too cold. I have many interruptions and can’t seem to complete a task. Is there something natural to take that helps to stay focused?
A: Sounds like you are working in a very open, spontaneous and interactive environment. Needless to say, it would be hard for anybody to focus on a specific task while dealing with frequent interruptions.
That said, the most natural solution would be to enlist your administrator’s help in relocating to a more worker-friendly area of the office. Or you might rearrange your workday in a manner that schedules in specific times for student visits and phone conversations, plus do-not-disturb times dedicated to completing assigned tasks. Taking a pill, natural or otherwise, would not protect you from a highly distracting workplace environment.
When referring to a person’s ability to focus or concentrate, we imply that their thoughts are narrowly channeled toward what they are:
- Currently doing (playing, watching a movie, working on a job assignment).
- Intending to do (gathering information needed for a presentation).
- Wanting to complete (homework, project, others).
If thoughts, feelings or one’s environment disrupt the ability to complete tasks in a timely or mistake-free manner, there may be a problem with focus or concentration. More often than not, distractions are the main reasons for this concern. These can be grouped into two categories: Internal and External.
Internal distractions are driven by your own thoughts, emotions and physical well-being. For instance, have you ever tried to do homework on an empty stomach or when you were very tired? If so, you know it can be hard to concentrate. Other internal distractions include but aren’t limited to:
- Poor organizational ability.
- Impaired ability to read or understand (eye or hearing problem, dyslexia).
- Worry, anxiety or depression.
- Job dissatisfaction.
- Time of day (too early or too late).
- Medications or supplements (stimulants, fatigue-causing drugs, others).
- And lack of exercise.
Even though attention deficit disorder (with or without hyperactivity) can be a significant cause of internal distraction, I do not think that is contributing to your lack of focus. I say this because you did not mention having ADD/ADHD as a child, nor did you express problems with impulsivity (speaking before thinking, gambling problem, others), distractibility (cannot follow conversations, easily bored, others), or hyperactivity (constant talking, trouble sitting still, others).
External distractions are related to the environment. In regard to your workplace, there are lots of reasons for your inability to fully concentrate. These include:
- Noise.
- Constant interruption (telephone, student needs, co-workers).
- E-mail, inter-office mail, public address system announcements.
- Uncomfortable office air temperatures.
It is important to know that each and every one of us has a different temperament, coping mechanism for working in a busy environment and the ability to maintain focus amid a storm of chaos. We can only do our best while adapting to the situation at hand.
Robert Danoff’s Top 10 strategies for helping you stay focused at work include:
- Prioritize tasks into what is important and urgent. Accomplish these first, then complete others in a timely manner.
- Ask for help. If you are constantly interrupted by phone calls or impromptu student visits, meet with your supervisor in order to provide a more organized structure.
- De-clutter your workspace, leaving only one project to be completed at a time.
- Noise cancellation devices, such as earplugs, may help improve your focus on the task at hand.
- Privacy. See if you can relocate to another area when your assignment requires attention without interruption.
- Temperature control. Ask the maintenance department to provide better regulation of the heating and cooling system in your office.
- Create solutions that will provide for a better work environment.
- Nurture yourself, and provide positive feedback with your accomplishments.
- Stop fighting the tide. Learn to accept and expect interruptions. Instead of getting frustrated, just go with the flow.
- Don’t look too far ahead. Step back, take a deep breath, smile and exhale. Now you’re ready for the task at hand!
Robert Danoff, D.O., M.S., is a family physician and program director of The Family Practice Residency, as well as the combined Family Practice/Emergency Medicine Residency programs at Frankford Hospitals, Jefferson Health System, Philadelphia, Pa. He is the medical correspondent for CN8, The Comcast Network, a regular contributor to Discovery Health Online and a contributing writer to The New York Times Special Features. (Read his full bio.)
© 2008 Microsoft
Distracted by Injury
I spent over 5 hours in the emergency room and several hours prior between the doctor’s office and the radiology office yesterday. My son suffered from a displaced fracture in his hand. This distracted me from work most of yesterday and much of today as I follow-up to contact insurance, arrange an appointment with the specialist, calm my nerves, and help him address him pain.
When family emergencies strike we are pulled from our work to address the situation promptly. I accomplished only the absolutely necessary to prepare for a workshop I am presenting tomorrow, (ironically it’s on “Stress Management”) and respond to a few inquiries.
When disaster strikes, emergencies occur, or the like it is important to focus where it’s most important and communicate clearly to others about your need to concentrate elsewhere. Having a strong support network was and always has been very helpful in any crises.
On top of everything already occuring, I had tried most of the day yesterday to contact another mom from my Monday carpool for dance beings it was my week to pick up my daughter and 2 other girls from school, pick up a pizza for dinner, and drop them at dance class. Unfortunately, I was not able to connect with the another mom from the carpool. As it got later and it was clear that I couldn’t get from the Radiologist to the school on time, I realized that I needed another plan. I called a different mom from the dance school, explained my situation and requested her help. She was not able to pick up the girls either but she called up one of the dance teachers and got her to help us out. The dance teacher connected with one of the moms I had tried unsuccessfully to get all day and explained the situation. Once the girls were taken care of, I released a huge sigh of relief and was able to fully focus on my son again.
Sometimes we are challenged by multiple conflicting priorities and emotions. During these times, it helps to know what is most important to you, what your options are and who is available to help. Always have a few phone numbers on hand so that you have a variety of people to call! Don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Exemplary Leading During Tough Times
In times of economic slowdown and crises, leadership skills are more important than ever!! According to Ronald Heifetz, director of the Leadership Education Project at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, “…the strongest leaders take the courage to face reality, the humility to admit when they don’t have all the answers, and the commitment to make changes. The new role is to help people face reality and to mobilize them to make changes.”
Many companies are already enduring a global economic downturn and an uncertain future. Markets are shifting their priorities causing some delay in purchasing decisions or cancelation of orders. Productivity is suffering mostly due to waning focus and motivation of the workforce. And, busines leaders are faced with similar emotions and anxieties that everyone else has.
Here are a few suggested strategies to help you navigate as a strong and successful leader during these troubled times:
1. Stay focused
Being alert and attentive is important. Leaders need to be a role model that helps employees align with the company’s vision, mission and values. Leaders need to help keep everyone be engaged and ease their tension and anxieties by providing direction, vision, stability and support.
2. Communicate often
Employees need to feel connected to their leaders. Honest, straight-forward, consistent and frequent communication is important and helps diminish the rumors that fly in the face of fear and uncertainty. Leaders must provide the workforce with progress reports and keep them informed.
3. Motivate your workforce
Although it may be difficult during extreme and intense times, leaders must keep the workforce motivated, energized and committed. Help your employees take personal responsibility and accountability for helping the company succeed.
4. Prepare for the future
Prepare for a healthy and prosperous future. Re-position customer service and commitment to quality. Serve your customers well. Help keep the company in a healthy position to survive troubled times. Continue investing in on-going learning that can be applied to making things better now and in the future. Provide coaching, training and mentoring to help develop your employees.
6. Benchmark against the best
It’s hard to say which companies will do best in the future. Many companies are faltering. Mergers and acquisitions are commonplace. Be aware of what your competitors are doing and how they are performing. Learn from their mistakes. Savor in the opportunities to learn from the best and capatalize on their experiences. Proactively look for areas that can be improved in your organization.
Don’t take a wait-and-see attitude but instead pursue long-term prosperity and growth and control what you can!
Meals in Minutes
In my latest e-newsletter, I shared a tip this week about planning quick and healthy meals. One of my readers who is a former client, shared anothe great idea with me.
“Last year, I was part of a moms group that prepared a frozen meal for each person in the group. It was good to get with them. Many of them had special needs kids. SO cooking is something they enjoyed. Plus they want health meals. I really miss the group. It was nice to have the meals already planned for the month. It was a really time saver too. There were 8 in the group . SO we met and decided what we were each will to cook. This took a whole day to prepare with shopping for the food. You need freeze. But you ended up with 8 meals for a serving of 8. I had them split my meals. So I ended up with 16 meals. Hope you understand this. But it was good for the season. Plus my cooking skills improved. Steve really enjoyed the variety. One lady loved to cook soups. Not something I did. Steve loved them. I have now learned how to cook a good soup.”
You can subscribe to my bi-monthly e-newsletter FREE!! Simply send a blank email to superbusyparent-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or visit my website and click the link there.
Have an idea to share, please add your comments or send your idea directly to me.
Stay Focused During Extreme Times
In today’s volatile and uncertain economy fears abound across many industries and professions throughout the US and abroad. People fear losing their job, their home, their financial savings, and their health.
This fear has immobilized many people and caused a sharp decrease in workforce productivity. It is very difficult for people to concentrate on the task-at-hand when they have so many concerns. We are indeed living in challenging times. These are times of uncertainty but life will continue.
Now is the time to focus like never before, to determine what’s really most important to you, and how you can best proceed. It’s a time to take fate into your own hands and be in control of your life. Rather than feeling like a victim, create your paths, secure your future, do what you need to do to help overcome your fears.
Fear is an indication to do something. Doing nothing or ruminating about all the possible scenarios can keep you stuck. There are very few guarantees in life. You may need to take some risks to take control. Determine for yourself the degree of risk you can handle and make choices based on this. Find ways to keep your productivity high as well as the quality of your work so that your self-esteem doesn’t suffer unduly.
These are days of extreme and often irrational pessimism. The way to survive this crisis is to stay focused on the fundamentals. The benefit to you is less stress, more control. The benefit to the economy and to businesses is that productivity and standards don’t suffer.
What’s your fears telling you to do different or do differently??
When Technology doesn’t work
I have spent the majority of my day, nearly 5 hours being focused so that I can get my BLOG listed at some directories and post an article. This was my main priority today and I planned on 1-2 hours to complete this task.
Has this ever happened to you??? You plan on something being less complicated than it becomes. It expends so much of your time and energy. You become so determined to get it done because this is what you have committed to do (I even declared it to a couple of people to help minimize interruptions!).
Personally, I find this so frustrating and a waste of time! Please share your tips for me and others to overcome this problem!
Overscheduled Kids leads to Over-Stressed Families
Teachers handed out an article last week at back-to-school night without identifying where the story came from. However, the article, “Kids call for a Time Out” stated the problems over scheduled families face and gave a tried and true solution…”Just say no”.
My children are involved in activities. Early on, my husband and I set limits on how many and how much they can be involved with at any one time with the caveat the school always comes first and any drop in grades will result in changes in their extra-curricular schedule. Admittedly, there have been times along the years that we had the same conflicts in scheduling, transportation and other conflicts that other families also face. However, my children have learned to make choices!
My 11 year old daughter was a competitive gymnast up until last year. She took up dancing to help enhance her gymnastics presentation and skills. Ultimately, she liked dancing so much that she’s elected to drop from the gymnastics team and devote more time to dancing. She originally wanted to take 5 nights of classes but in re-thinking opted for 4 nights, with usually just 1 class a night. We are involved in carpools and the dance school is conveniently located about a mile from our home. Next year, she’d like to try out for cheerleading. She wanted to try out last year but due to an already pressed schedule, chose not to.
My son is also involved in extra-curricular. During the spring he participates in a non-travel baseball team and in the fall/winter he is in a youth basketball league. We chose these because his main interest is motocross, which is usually a weekend activity. He, too, has learned to make choices based on his primary interests. The basic rule of thumb is up to 2 activities at any one time if they don’t conflict. Prior to registering, we ask allot of questions about the schedule and commitment.
A growing number of parents are avoiding over-scheduling their kids because they think the hyper-scheduling has gone too far. Now a Minnesota group has set up a website www.FamilyLife1st.org to help parents curb their children’s‘ crazy schedules. This group receives new inquiries daily as an increasing number of parents are ready to refocus their lives and the lives of their children.
How about your children…are they over-scheduled?
Communication Technology Distractions
Text messages, instant messaging and online chat (which is frequently being used in some work environments as a communication tool) are often over-used; some are in the form of pop-up boxes that immediately open when the message arrives. The Internet and the ease to search for hours on end is a frequent offender both at home and at work. The best way to manage these is to prevent them in the first place. Managing expectations in an age of instant access is a challenge but possible with clear indications of when and how these will be handled.
Telephone calls are another big distraction in our lives. When focusing on the task-at-hand, most people feel the need to pick-up the ringing phone whether it’s the cell phone or standard office line. Calls can come from coworkers, customers, patients, your boss, and family, friends and personal service providers (e.g., doctor, lawyer, accountant, auto mechanic, real estate agent). It’s easy to say “just don’t answer the phone” or “turn the ringer off” during focus times, it’s another thing to put this into practice. As long as your caller has an opportunity to leave a voice message, they will do so and you can call back at a more convenient time.
How do you protect your time and the 24/7 availability?
Taming Email
Email is the number one distraction for most people at work! People complain of burgeoning in-boxes from recipients expecting an instant response, address lists including unnecessary recipients, and large volumes of unsolicited emails. Our society in general has placed a high value and unrealistic expectations on immediate access and response. Taming e-mail means training senders to put the burden of quality back on themselves to use better judgment when sending emails, minimizing the number of words in a message, being more descriptive in the subject line to summarize the gist of the message or action needed, making action requests clear, and determining who needs to receive the message rather than copying everyone.
It wasn’t long ago that SPAM mail was the biggest email problem, however, with added filters and spam-blockers the numbers have decreased thus making it a little easier to manage. Fortunately, these messages are easy to spot and can be deleted pretty quickly! Regrettably, the number of emails received on an average day continues to increase. Better management of the inbox and improved decision-making will help. Also, putting some systems in place to help you manage your email overload will make a recognizable difference. Here are a couple of quick tips:
- Only check e-mail at defined times each day.
- Train people to be relevant so that they only send you emails when they pertain to you.
- Answer briefly while providing context upfront in your message as to the nature of your reply.
- Send out delayed responses by inserting a scheduled delay in when your typed response will actually be sent.
- Ignore it and trust that if it’s important you’ll hear about it again.
Organize your follow-up list and respond based on priority.
What are your techniques for controlling your inbox??
How to Truly Pay Attention to your Work–Before it Costs you Your Job
The four important keys for managing distractions at work so that you can increase your productivity and performance include:
1. Recognize what, when, why and how distractions occur for you. Realize they may be different for you than for others.
2. Identify everything vying for your time, attention and resources.
3. Select your top priorities.
4. Realign around your priorities and FOCUS!!
What works for you??
