You’re determined to finish the task at hand when suddenly something comes up – a ping! – from your email notifications, a hunger pang, or even a coworker popping their head in with a quick office tidbit.
When you finally refocus, you have lost five minutes, fifteen minutes, or maybe even an hour. You cannot find where you left off or why you got sidetracked. You just want to increase your focus and get things done!
Luckily, you are not alone in struggling with this. There are many tips available on how to stay focused at work. Here we will show you how to easily apply the most effective tips.
21 Ways On How to Stay Focused on Work
Being strategic in your approach to easily focus at work requires you to identify what causes your inability to concentrate in the first place.
Some questions to consider are whether the cause is minor, such as you are having a bad day or having a hard time focusing due to a more serious underlying issue.
Here are some common reasons people may not be able to focus at work:[1]
- Lack of sleep
- Stressful lifestyle
- Boredom
- ADHD
- Insomnia
- Depression
- Anxiety
There are a variety of reasons for you losing focus at work. However, don’t worry if you can’t exactly pinpoint what’s causing your lack of concentration on any task at hand.
Taking time to reflect on what is possibly causing your lack of focus can help address underlying issues. Once you do so, the decision to stay focused at work is in your hands.
When you know what is causing your inability to focus on work, it all comes down to finding the right techniques and effectively applying them.
Here are 21 ways on how to focus at work:
1. Know Your Triggers
The likelihood of being distracted is directly related to the amount of pull something has on our attention. Increased self-observation and deep introspection help you identify where your boundaries lie.
There are three cues that you need to either set boundaries for or to raise your awareness when your boundaries slip:
- Discomfort
- Resentment
- Guilt
You can’t always avoid every single distraction, but if you’re aware of your weaknesses, you have a better chance of putting the right systems in place to reduce exposure to distractions.
The first step in setting boundaries is knowing your triggers and limits – are they mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual?
Once you identify your triggers, you can set healthy boundaries to give you room to do what you want to focus on. Boundaries serve as the framework to focus your efforts and harness your energy so that you can do your best work.
Keep in mind that your limits are your own, so it’s likely to be different than the limits of others.
Our inability to set boundaries results from our fear of offending those around us. However, you have little to no obligation beyond your own guilt to be immediately available to everyone all the time. Once you set boundaries, stand by them.
Read more here: 6 Steps To Drawing Healthy Boundaries For a Balance Life.
2. Communicate Your Boundaries
Ask co-workers (kindly) not to distract you while working.
Once you set up your personal working system where you work at your best, make sure to make others aware of it. This will increase the chances of your colleagues leaving you to focus on work during the hours you set aside for important tasks.
On the flip side, when others at work know you’re on your “free time,” they will pose questions and talk during these periods.
3. Eliminate Digital Distractions
If you’re like most workers, you don’t spend all of your hours at work doing actual work. Be honest. During those perceived lulls at work, the temptation to surf the internet or double-check your notifications can be strong. Remove all digital distractions and reward yourself later.
4. Make Your Computer Distraction-Free
This is very important for people who always work on their computers. Continued distractions on your work computer will wane your ability to focus at will.
How can you make your computer distraction free?
5. Rethink Your Email Usage
Emails can be extremely distracting. Keeping our email open makes us think we are more connected to others. However, checking our emails often is unnecessary.
The average professional spends 28% of their workday checking emails and responding to emails.[2]
If there is an urgent matter, email would not be the first method of contact for you. People will call you instead.
What can you do to resist constantly checking your email?
Depending on which company you work for and your specific role, there’s a strong possibility you’ll receive a steady stream of company emails daily. Let’s face it: you get a lot. Likely a heavy mix of personal and work correspondence, promos and updates from your sites, and undoubtedly, spam.
Another email strategy you could apply is the polarizing Inbox Zero method.
Originally coined by Merlin Mann, owner of 43 Folders, Inbox Zero will help you to dedicate specific chunks of time to reading and answering emails so that they don’t take over your day.
Here are some tenants of Mann’s original view of Inbox Zero:
- Keep your email application closed for the majority of the day.
- When processing emails, follow the principle of Delete, Delegate, Respond, Defer or Do.
- Respond immediately to messages which can be answered in two minutes or less.
6. Reimagine Your Phone Use
Not all calls are about your apartment being burglarized or a loved one in a precarious situation. So turn off your mobile phone or put it on silent mode during hours when you need all your attention on your work. You can also opt to activate the voicemail service.
You could also request your workmates to inform your callers you will get back to them later instead of always tapping your back or shouting out that you’ve got a call at any time.
Once you’re done with work, call back the earlier callers and explain your situation briefly. In the next two minutes, ask about their concern, note it down and tell them you’d call them back for their needed action. Prepare and write all their needed details, bearing in mind their possible follow-up thoughts on the matter. Then, call them back and always limit the phone conversation to less than three minutes.
Be “Invisible”
You can also set your instant messaging status to indicate you are “busy” or stay “invisible” while you work to remain focused on a task. If you still get IMs, just turn off the notification or program. Turn it on later when your current task is not as pressing.
7. Stay Away From Social Media
It’s usually hard to stay focused at work because something new, interesting, and perky always comes with most social networking sites. Not only will it defeat your purpose of staying focused at work, but there’s plenty of information there that could get your mind unnecessarily perturbed – like a friend’s status about her heartbreak or someone from work getting a raise.
Discipline yourself to log in only when you have extra minutes free. This will help you efficiently use your time to focus on work.
8. Methodically Schedule Each Day
Meticulously planning each day is the best way to approach deep work and one of the best strategies to stay focused at work. It imposes time limits, creating a healthy “pressure on time.”
A lack of a structured plan or schedule is one of the main reasons most people lose focus during a workday.
You’ll have more time control when you schedule each workday because you’ll know exactly what you want to accomplish and when.
The time-blocking (or time boxing) approach holds you accountable by allocating specific periods for specific types of work.
There are different time-boxing methods, such as day-theming. Day theming is dedicating each day of the week to a specific theme instead of switching between different types of work or areas of responsibility throughout the day. This strategy is not about scheduling a perfect day. It’s about giving structure to your workday by forcing you to be more intentional with your time.
9. Make a Daily “To-Do” List and Keep It Nearby
It’s always helpful when you have your list of tasks beside your computer, at any conspicuous place in the work area, or in an accessible app. Here you can learn “The Right Way to Make a To-Do List and Get Things Done.”
Cross out the “done” tasks when you’ve completed them, and you will have a sense of accomplishment and feel satisfied.
10. Focus on Short Bursts
The tried and true “Pomodoro technique” is a key strategy to improve how you focus at work. It understands that focusing on difficult tasks is both efficient and tiring. You can break it down like this [3]
How to do the Pomodoro Technique:
- Choose your assignment/work to do
- Set the timer to 25 minutes
- Work until the timer rings
- Take a five-minute break
- Take longer breaks (15 to 30 minutes) for every four Pomodoro intervals
11. Prioritize Tasks
The first hour at work is when most people are productive. This is because all energies are yet to be spent. One of the ultimate tips for focusing at work is to put the taxing and difficult task on your agenda during the first hour. This will allow you to use focus to do the most pressing tasks.
Follow these with the less pressing work, and then end with those routine tasks that you find boring.
12. Keep Food and Drink Close to You
Drinking water isn’t only healthy; it refreshes you as well. Once you feel the first sign of fatigue or hunger, a glass of water can push them away. Then you can finish what you’re doing and rest at a later time.
Besides, not all stomach rumblings are signs of hunger, and drinking a glass of water usually deals with it.
Just make sure you have water within arms’ reach. That way, you stay focused at work instead of walking to the water station and becoming prey to distractions!
Food that could settle a grumbling stomach should also be at hand. For the same reason as having 90% of your attention at work, eating within your workspace will not expose you to unrelated activities. Just try to eat healthy snacks so that you can stay energetic.
13. Monotask
According to psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell, author of CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life,
“multitasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we’re simultaneously tasking, but we’re really not. It’s like playing tennis with three balls.”
Focus on One Task
When we focus on more than one thing simultaneously, we tend to do all of them poorly. It leads to more mistakes, and as a result, we need to correct ourselves more often.[4]
14. Chunking Tasks
While we might not be able to multitask, we can do two activities simultaneously if they use different parts of our brains. That’s why we can drive and listen to podcasts simultaneously and keep control of our cars—driving has become internalized.
While chunking doesn’t qualify as something that will increase focus, what it does is free up time that we can use for other tasks. Good time management means having the ability to do more. When we have so much on our plate, getting through all can be daunting. But by chunking activities, we kill two birds with one stone.
15. Set Deadlines
Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted.[5] Put simply, we adjust our work to the time available for completion.
Don’t allow yourself to put things off and instead attack them head-on. Combined with the other techniques and strategies outlined in this article, you’ll be able to rip right through things.
16. Put on Headphones
In most offices, various sounds can prove distracting, like the floor polisher, the mail cart, workmates talking, phones ringing, and sounds of things dropping on the floor. So why not block out distracting stuff?
Protect yourself with headphones so you can stay focused at work. The headphones will ward off surprising sounds and those that get your mind wandering.
Choose Suitable Music
The point of having music in the background while you’re working is to provide ease and inspiration so you can stay focused at work. For some, listening to music pumps up their adrenaline so they can work with greater energy.
But not all kinds of music are pleasant for everyone, and some are not suited to one’s mood. If you want some ideas for the kind of music to listen to, check out this Productivity Music for Focus (Recommended Playlists).
17. Cultivate Your Best Workspace
Many people find working physically strenuous, even if it’s done seated most of the time.
One of the best tips to focus at work is not to lose precious time and be distracted by discomfort. Get a good chair with great back support, and make sure your desk or worktable is well-structured. That way, you can work for many hours and not find your body and eyes getting strained.
According to science, clutter breaks our attention and also makes us multitask. This causes excess stimulation and loss in productivity.[6]
Too much stuff within arms’ reach or at your desk can prove to be distracting. To stay focused at work, only have the things you need neatly piled on your desk and put the rest away properly, like in a desk drawer or shelves.
Have an area for food and drinks, your bag or purse, and other personal items. But have them within reach so you can just grab a drink without losing focus on what you’re doing.
18. Switch Things Up
Even with eliminating all those pesky distractions and making yourself as comfortable as possible, sometimes you get stuck. It’s at moments like that we need a change of scenery. It’s no use beating a dead horse.
Clear your mind by doing something completely different. That breather will give your mind time to reboot itself. Playing a video game, reading a book, or doing anything completely different from what you usually do can work. It’s amazing how we can increase our focus by simply switching things up.
Go Outside
Going for a short walk encourages a relaxed mindset and increases the chance of us returning to the issue and thinking of new ways to approach it.
Additionally, much research reminds us of the consequences of sitting down too much. A recent article cites sedentary behavior as an emerging health concern [7]
19. Be Kind to Yourself
You probably noticed yourself being extremely critical of small things. They occupy our minds and make us less likely to try again because they’re very easy to believe.
If we’re kinder to ourselves, we’ll spend less time criticizing ourselves over simple mistakes.
20. Always Find the Fun in What You Do
Before starting anything, ask yourself why you should do it. Then, find ways for the task to become fun, like allowing your creativity and imagination to play in the process. Don’t stick within the borders of “approved” output; have your options open for new, fun ideas.
When you make something you can call your own, you’re more likely to stay focused at work.
21. Meditate
Meditation helps you engage with tasks more quickly and with greater consistency. Taking a quick ten minutes to meditate can work wonders. It keeps you calm and relaxed and, in many ways, energizes you when you feel mentally and physically depleted.[8]
The Bottom Line
We are always surrounded by events and people at work that cut off our momentum and affect our ability to concentrate. By consciously keeping ourselves away from these distractions, we can stay more focused at work and get better outcomes
Reference
| [1] | ^ | Brightside Health: 5 Reasons You May Have Trouble Concentrating |
| [2] | ^ | Harvard Business Review: How to Spend Way Less Time on Email Every Day |
| [3] | ^ | NIH: The Pomodoro Technique: An Effective Time Management Tool |
| [4] | ^ | News.Stanford: Media multitaskers pay mental price, Stanford study shows |
| [5] | ^ | Asana.com: Parkinson’s Law: How to overcome it to increase productivity |
| [6] | ^ | The Science Times:What the Research Says About a Cluttered Desk |
| [7] | ^ | NIH: Sedentary Behavior: Emerging Evidence for a New Health Risk |
| [8] | ^ | NIH: Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves electrophysiological markers of attentional control |
