Improve Focus And Increase Productivity

Learn simple, quick, and effective techniques that serve to greatly improve focus and increase your productivity. 69% of workers have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time and are easily distracted. A McKinsey Global Institute study found that the average worker spends 13 hours a week on email – the equivalent of 28% of our workweek!

What’s the solution? It involves studying the brain. Science has discovered that our brain naturally goes through cycles with peaks and valleys. To maximize your output, it is vital that you honor these peaks and valleys by balancing concentrated, focused time with relaxation and integration. This talk will teach you a simple, yet effective technique to triple your productivity. You'll be amazed by how much you accomplish when you put these tools to work for you!

Transcript

Today,

We're going to be talking about how to improve focus and increase your productivity.

We live in a world of constant distraction.

With the advent of technology,

It's become easier than ever to lose your focus.

There's always your phone beeping or multiple browsers on your computer open,

Social media,

So many things that are trying to grab our attention moment to moment.

And technology today is also so sophisticated,

It's been designed to capture our attention and keep our attention.

It's incredibly easy to go down that rabbit hole of looking at things on social media or being distracted.

Being able to train your focus and be more focused on what matters to you is going to help you to increase your productivity and to feel such a greater sense of alignment that you're spending your time and your energy on the things that you really care about.

So one thing to be aware of when it comes to improving focus is just how bad multitasking really is.

A while back,

I did some research on this for an article I was writing for Forbes,

And I found one study done at the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London,

Where they studied 1,

100 workers at a British company and found that multitasking caused a greater decrease in IQ than smoking marijuana or losing a night's sleep,

Which is amazing.

So multitasking does not work.

Another audit done by the Energy Project found that 69% of workers have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time and are easily distracted during the day,

Especially by email.

And a McKinsey Global Institute study found that the average worker spends 13 hours a week on email.

13 hours a week,

That's the equivalent of 28% of our work week.

So what's the solution?

While it involves studying the brain,

Science has discovered that our brain naturally goes through cycles with peaks and valleys.

So when you fall asleep,

You enter a REM cycle sleep for about 90 minutes,

And you go through this interval where you fall down into a deep sleep and then you come back out.

And your brain continues to cycle this way in these 90-minute intervals throughout the night.

As it turns out,

Our brains and our bodies go through similar cycles during the day as well.

Your heart alternates between beating and resting.

Your lungs inhale and exhale.

Your entire body is pulsing off and on,

And your brain is participating in this cycle as well.

So sleep researchers have found the same oscillations from higher to lower states of alertness during the day as what occurs at night during these REM sleep cycles.

If you want to improve your focus and increase your productivity,

It's really important that you honor the natural rhythms of your brain and these peaks and valleys of your own energy and focus.

And the way to do that is to have intervals where you're incredibly concentrated and focused and then balance that out with periods of relaxation and integration.

So I like to teach this process through something called a power hour,

And it actually takes roughly 75 minutes.

The way you do a power hour is you set aside,

It actually takes roughly 75 minutes with all of the breaks.

And what you're going to want to do,

This comes back to the point about multitasking,

Is the first thing you want to do is put away all distractions so that you can focus on just one thing at a time.

So what I recommend to set yourself up for success is to turn off your phone,

Close out of all of your browsers on your computer,

Except for maybe the one tab that you need to accomplish the first thing on your to do list.

And you'll close out of all social media.

If you work in an open office space,

I actually recommend that you book a conference room or even go out to a coffee shop to do your power hour so you won't have someone coming by your desk and saying hello and distracting you when you're trying to be really focused.

So what you do is you put away all distractions,

And you take the number one thing on your to do list,

The most important thing for you to accomplish that day.

And then what you're going to do is you're going to set a timer for 20 minutes.

And all you do for 20 minutes is that one thing.

And number one thing on your to do list,

You focus exclusively on that for 20 minutes.

When the timer goes off,

You take a two minute break.

And you want to do something completely unrelated to that task or to your work.

So you might go for a walk,

You might walk down the hall and get a glass of water,

You know,

Get a drink,

Go to the bathroom.

And then you'll come back and you set the timer for 20 minutes again.

Okay,

You'll do another 20 minute interval.

And after that 20 minute interval,

You'll take another two minute break.

Again,

Just walk down the hall,

Get a drink,

Glass of water,

And you'll come back,

You do a third 20 minute interval.

And if you finish the number one thing on your to do list,

You'll just move on to the number two thing.

Then you do a third 20 minute interval.

And when you finish that 20 minute interval,

You take a 10 to 15 minute break.

And again,

You want to do something completely unrelated to the task at hand.

So you might go out of the building,

Go for a little walk,

Or maybe you call a friend on the phone,

You want to let your brain have some time to rest and integrate.

And that entire process is one power hour.

And I guarantee if you do just one power hour in a given day,

You'll get more done in that power hour than you do usually the entire day.

I actually was at the lobby at Google for a meeting over a year ago.

And someone recognized me in the lobby.

And she said,

Oh,

I heard you speak here like two,

Three years ago.

And you know,

Your talk really,

It really changed how I do things really made an impact.

And I said,

Oh,

That's so great.

What's the thing that you remember the most,

You know,

Because it's so fun for me to hear from people years later to see what actually sticks.

And she said,

Oh,

The power hour.

That was so amazing.

I still do it at least once a week,

And sometimes several times a week,

If not every day.

So this was three years later,

And you're still doing it.

And so it's been one of the tools that I've brought to folks that they found incredibly helpful.

And I use it myself,

And I don't do it every day.

And I don't even do it every week.

But when I do do it,

I really,

I get so much more accomplished.

It's amazing.

So that is a really helpful way to harness the natural rhythms of your brain and to focus on just one thing at a time.

Now another quick hack,

And these two first tips are more for people at a traditional job.

And if you're a stay at home parent,

I'm going to give you a couple other suggestions for how to improve focus in a minute.

One of my other favorite techniques for improving focus and letting go of multitasking is to have better boundaries around your activities during the workday.

So as I mentioned with that McKinsey study,

13 hours a week,

People are spending on email,

Email has become a huge time sink,

But it's also a really big distraction.

One study by Gloria Mark,

Who studies digital distraction at the University of California,

Found that it takes an average of about 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption.

So that means if you're focused on the number one thing on your to do list,

And then an email pops up and you get an alert about that and you check the email,

Even if you only read that email for one minute,

It's going to take you the exact numbers 23 minutes and 15 seconds to be exact to get back focused on whatever it is you were doing.

So that one minute email actually slowed your brain down,

Your productivity down by 23 minutes.

So every time you get interrupted,

You lose 23 minutes.

An email is something that is constantly pinging us and distracting our focus.

So the other hack that I've learned that I find incredibly helpful,

And I know Tim Ferriss has taught this and I can't remember who he got it from originally,

I think someone else,

But what you do is you have set periods of the day when you're going to check email,

And that's the only time you check your email.

So for example,

I did this as an experiment for a while and found it so effective.

I would check email at 10 a.

M.

And 4 p.

M.

For one hour,

Roughly,

You know,

Or 30 minutes each of those times.

So at 10 a.

M.

,

You know,

For 30 minutes or an hour,

I do all the emails and then again at 4 p.

M.

Now if you're someone who works in sales or client service business where you feel like you have to always be responding quickly,

Or there's urgent messages you need to be responding to,

You have a couple choices.

You can set a timer for just five or 10 minutes to quickly scroll through your email,

You know,

Once an hour,

And then you have the longer window to do greater replies only once or twice a day.

Or you can even set up an autoresponder.

I got this idea from Tim Ferriss and I actually did it and it worked really well.

So you create an autoresponder that says,

I'm doing a productivity experiment and I'm only going to be checking email at these two times,

Let's say 10 a.

M.

And 4 p.

M.

If you have some,

I will be replying to your messages at 10 a.

M.

And 4 p.

M.

If you have something urgent that needs a response at another time,

Please text me at or please email,

You know,

My assistant or this other person.

So basically you give people who might have an urgent situation another option to reach you,

But you're letting everyone know,

Hey,

I'm going to check email once a day or twice a day at these times and I'll be replying to you then.

So you're just setting a new standard for folks.

Because here's the deal,

If you're the person who always responds to email right away,

Guess what?

People start to expect that from you.

And how are you going to be able to focus on your top priorities to move your career and your life forward if you're always responding to other people's demands on you?

Email is a situation where you're getting a lot of inbound requests.

Other people want your time,

Your attention,

Your focus.

And while that's important,

It's more important to stay clear on your priorities and to make sure that you're getting those done first.

So that's what I recommend when it comes to email.

Okay,

So those were a lot of solutions for working folks.

Let's say that you are a stay at home parent and you're spending time with your kids and you want to improve focus.

When that situation,

You're still working,

It's just a different kind of work,

Right?

Your child,

You're doing caregiving or maybe household duties.

What I recommend is to do a practice of mindful awareness,

Either while you're spending time with your children or even while you're cleaning up or doing things around the house.

So what you want to do is you want to start to pay attention.

I like to set a timer in the beginning for one to five minutes.

And then what you do is for that one to five minutes,

You try to be completely present and focused on one thing.

And so if I'm with my children,

I've even,

I'll set a timer and I'll meditate on my children and focus on them,

Where all I'll do is look at them and watch them for one to five minutes.

And in my head,

I'll think about how much I love them,

How much I appreciate them.

I'll really focus on being with them.

Or you can set a timer while you're doing the dishes or cleaning up and see if you can just tune into your five senses and be really focused on the task at hand.

So maybe feel the warmth of the clothes as you pull them out of the dryer or notice the smell of the dish soap as you're washing dishes.

Notice different sounds and sense and what you're feeling with your hands.

See if you can just focus for one to three breaths even as you inhale and exhale,

Be completely focused on one thing.

You know,

As a parent,

It's incredibly easy to multitask as well.

Maybe you're on the phone registering your kid for some class while you're also doing dishes.

We often do more than one thing at once.

So see again,

If you can stop the multitasking and be focused on one thing at a time and then allow yourself to be really present in the moment as you do that task.

Okay,

Well,

I hope these tips and tricks on how to improve focus and increase productivity were helpful.

Please leave a comment below and let us know what you thought of this.

The good news is that the more you train your brain to focus on only one thing at a time,

The easier it becomes.

And today's meditation is a focusing meditation.

It's a practice I learned to help you really focus on a single point of energy and move that point of energy around so that you can learn what it feels like to focus very specifically on one thing for several minutes at a time.

So enjoy the meditation and definitely leave a comment below.

Let us know what you thought of the meditation or today's chat.

I will read every single comment and can't wait to hear from you.

I'm wishing you increased focus and productivity and presence in your life today.

Have a wonderful day.

Thanks so much.

Do it!

Reviews

Thank you 🙏🏾 great reminder. I’ll pass this onto to my team.

Outstanding! 77 years old and this is still so useful! I love mindful dishwashing. I did not know it takes 25 minutes to refocus after a one minute email! Thank you.

Good tips! Finding myself getting worse at multitasking lately so great reminder how inefficient it is. Going to try the power hour tomorrow for sure.

I so need this! I'm very excited to try these techniques. I have so many things to do, that sometimes it feels overwhelming and I don't know where to start. So far in my life, I've been the world's best procrastinator. Hopefully I change that now. Many thanks for the ideas and motivation.

I have ADHD and even though I take medication for it, some days it feels very hard to focus on a specific task or I start things that I don’t finish. It’s harder when people don’t understand that I have ADHD—they dismiss it as being lazy, uninterested, and/or using an illness as an excuse. Your talk was quite informative. Thanks.

This is a great way to experience focus with awareness about what techniques might work. I’ve never heard of the power hour and I’m looking forward to giving it a try!

In addition to helpful information, your down-to-earth style of speech is so grounding and helpful for buy-in.

This was wonderful and something I desperately need (even as a retired person)!

5 I really liked the idea of the Power Hour. And there's an person that is all over the place ADHD I think this would help a lot I do a lot of meditation so this will help me

Great talk and tips. Am definitely going to put this to use.

Interesting ideas for improving focus…I work from home and can have lots of distractions, I am definitely looking forward to trying a few.

This makes sense. I am moving into this as soon as I finish this review. Sincerity and good energy came through from you. Thank you 🙏🏼!

Some great tips which I will be implementing when I’m back in the office. Thank you so much 🙏🏽

This was great! I loved the power hour idea and can not wait to try it. I also loved the mindfulness during times at home.

Food for thought. Thank you. I'm going to try these today. 🥰

Enjoyed that chat, glad to hear more against multitasking and the contrast to sleep deprivation and Marijuana consumption.

Using this on my call team today! Topic is productivity and saw this in my recommendations! Serendipity at work

That was truly amazing. It has been a downfall of mine to do ten things at once and never fully complete and or completing with errors. Thank you for helping realign my brain to be focused.

All your talks are so helpful, thank you for sharing what you've learned with us.

Really great. I will listen again and again periodically to help ingrain all these tools into my habit and my ritual. Thanks so much 🙏😊