How to Stay Focused and Succeed

Focus is a major key to success. We often hear that success demands many things from us and focus is always on top of the list. To focus and staying focused is such a challenge for us. Why is this so?

We have the technology and apps to help us organize and stay focused. Yet, technology like social media may also be the culprit why we cannot stay focused on our goals. We shall be delving into strategies to help you propel your success be it in business, career, studies, or personal life.

Focus defined

First, let us define what focus means. The dictionary defines focus as “the center of interest or activity. It is synonymous with the focal point, central point, hub, pivot, nucleus, heart, cornerstone, linchpin, kingpin, bedrock, basis, anchor, backbone.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the Latin word focus means “hearth, fireplace.” In the scientific Latin of the 17th century, the word is used to refer to the point at which rays of light refracted by a lens converge. Because rays of sunlight when directed by a magnifying glass can produce enough heat to ignite paper, a word meaning “fireplace” is quite appropriate as a metaphor to describe their convergence point. From this sense of focus have arisen extended senses such as “center of activity.”

Simply put, focus involves the ability to pay attention to things that will help things done and avoid distractions that will hurt your efforts. Personally, I would prefer the word “concentrate”.

Why do we need to focus

Focus is so important because it is the passport to all thinking: perception, memory, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision making. Without good focus, all aspects of your ability to think will suffer. Without focus, you won’t be as effective in your work because if you’re not concentrating on the right things or are distracted, you won’t be capable of getting your work done.

You also won’t be efficient without good focus because, every time your mind wanders away from your work, you are wasting time. And, you won’t be as productive as you can because your work output will not be of the highest quality and it will take you longer to do it.

Chris Hogan, the author of "Everyday Millionaires: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Wealth-and How You Can Too" emphasizes that successful people avoid distractions and the ‘shiny object syndrome. “Shiny object syndrome” or “SOS” is the tendency of someone to chase after a new idea or tool since it looks promising, shiny, and attractive, rather than staying focused. The end result – you never get things done.

Here’s a simple reality: if you can’t focus effectively, you can’t think effectively. And if you can’t think effectively, you definitely can’t produce the quality of work necessary to be successful. From this perspective, it’s not difficult to see why focus is such an essential tool for business and personal success.

“It’s not enough to be busy…so are ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” –Publius Syrus, philosopher, 42 B.C.

In his research, success expert Richard St. John interviewed more than 1,000 successful people including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. His research found out that most successes came out because of their ability to do one thing: focus.

Things that impair focus

If you have poor focus, you may feel that you simply have to try harder. However, trying harder still doesn’t work for you. There are instances that you have to promote concentration. There are conditions to help you stay focused at work and studies. By promoting these focus improvements, you may find it easier to concentrate and complete your work easier and faster.

Poor diet and nutrition can affect our ability to stay focused. Weight-loss diets are notoriously bad for focus and concentration. Low-fat diets, processed food, insufficient vitamins can worsen your ability to concentrate.

Hunger and dehydration are distractions by themselves. They lead to fatigue and reduce your ability to focus.

Lack of sleep, even for just one night, can affect how you think. It affects your memory as well, thus slowing your concentration and affecting your accuracy and speed at work. You are less alert than normal.

Stress can have dire consequences especially if it becomes chronic. Job worries, relationship issues, and health concerns can make it harder to concentrate. If you are mentally exhausted, you will find yourself rereading things because you cannot focus.

Lack of physical activity can make you sluggish physically and mentally. According to research studies, physical exercise enables our brain to form new neurons and form interconnections between them. These interconnections increase your ability to concentrate.

Your environment may have an effect on how to stay focused at work. Your chair may not be suitable for your work. Maybe the room is too hot or too cold. It could be too noisy and many phones are ringing at the same time. There may be many people coming in and out that are distracting you.

Things to Consider to Improve Focus

Know your goals

Stay focused on your daily, weekly, monthly, and eventually, your long-term goal. Make sure your goals are very clear to you. Put datelines on your goals as well. Remember the saying “a goal without a deadline is just a dream.” I believe so because if you put timelines on your goals, you are motivated to achieve your goals at a certain point.

Analyze your goals for home and at work. Are they working well for you? And You need to emotionally connect to your goal. Once you are emotionally connected, motivation kicks in and this is what helps you take action over all other things.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Stephen R. Covey

Plan ahead

Set up your day the night before. Before you go to sleep, make some basic decisions about what you will do the following day, such as what you will wear, what time you need to leave for work, what you need to bring with you.

Getting into the habit of planning your day in advance will remove the easiest decisions from the table, thus making it easier to avoid getting sidetracked. The seemingly small, unnecessary decisions we make can waste your time and energy.

De-clutter your mind and environment.

Why are we focusing on so many things at the same time?

A cluttered mind can’t focus. Decide to unload your mind with the other stuff. If your mind is filled with so much stuff, you won’t be able to focus well. So, go through your tasks and prioritize them. Also, clear your mind of anything that doesn’t relate to your work at hand. The less clutter you have in your mind, the better you will be able to focus.

Practice mindfulness. Remaining in the ‘here and now’ so that in the long run, you are more productive.

The direction of your focus is the direction your life will move. Let yourself move toward what is good, valuable, strong, and true. Ralph Marston

Create a focused workspace. To help you focus better, remove unnecessary clutter and simplify your workplace or study table. Sure, you can keep some photos and mementos to make your office an inviting place for you to work. Get rid of anything that doesn’t serve a specific work at that point in time. Glancing at the accumulated pile on your desk will not help you focus so remove them from your sight. Make them available once you are scheduled to work on them. Bottom line: a simple workspace can make you stay more focused than a cluttered, distracting workspace.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. Mark Twain

Block your time

Make a schedule of the things you need to accomplish and set a schedule to finish them. Honor that time. Don’t waste blocks of time. Be prepared and be organized to get right to your important work. Time-bocking requires a certain amount of discipline. If you don’t protect this time, who will?

Allocate your time deliberately. Know when you are most productive. Most people are more productive in the morning but some are more able get their productive juices late in the day. Figure out the time of day that works best for your body and mind.

Do the most difficult things first. Research has shown that our minds are sharpest in the morning and that is when we should tackle the tough jobs first. After these are out of the way, we can take care of the more routine work that may not require much mental strain, ability, and energy.

Here’s a very important lesson I learned. The most difficult duties will not get easier the more we put them off. We will only waste more energy and more time that is spent better finishing them off. Target to finish the hardest job right away while you are still very sharp and have energy.

Remember, there are only 24 hours in a day…no more, no less. This is your allocated time and reclaims your time to focus on things that move you forward.

When confronted with competing priorities, ask yourself questions like: “What is the best use of my time right now? What’s the most important thing I need to be doing right now?

Learn to manage distractions. This includes the desire to consistently check your phone or social media. Learn to manage interruptions, including learning to say ‘no’…gracefully. Try to overcome being an extreme ‘people pleaser’—or you’ll never have focus time!

Delegate

Learn to delegate. It’s one of the best ways to leverage your own time to work on high payoff priorities. Set boundaries with yourself. Ask yourself these questions: “Is there another solution? Do I need to do this myself?”

If you can’t delegate an entire project, delegate a portion. It will reduce your workload and will help develop your team.

With the reduction of load, you can focus your energy on important and critical issues such as business analysis, strategizing and problem-solving. This way, you are able to bring efficiency and effectiveness to your work.

Maintain healthy habits

It is not enough that you focus on your work. You need to focus on yourself as well. Your lifestyle, like your diet, can affect your ability to concentrate. Shifting your diet toward eating healthy foods can exponentially improve your ability to focus. Take moderate amounts of lean protein and fill your plate with lots of vegetables and fruit.

Eat a good breakfast to send a message to your body that it’s going to get the fuel it needs, then you will be less stressed physically and better able to remain focused.

Having enough water in your system throughout the day is one of the most basic steps you can take to help ensure good focus. Lack of focus can be an early indicator of dehydration.

Just as important as the food you eat is sleep. Enough sleep can make your brain function well.

Exercise can do wonderful things for focus and concentration. A short, intense session of running in place speeds circulation to the brain and improves focus fast.

Be disciplined

Be disciplined and develop solid habits. Discipline helps you go on a kind of autopilot and set you up with a familiar routine to help your habits flourish. Minimize multitasking. Better yet, eliminate it because it drains focus.

Get comfortable with the idea that you may only be able to work on a portion of your priority every day. Consistency in small steps, one at a time, is what helps get you through the entire project.

Once you have allocated a block of your time for a certain task, focus to do it as scheduled. It’s not just about time management. It’s also about energy management.

The single greatest obstacle to being focused in this digital age is your technology including computers, tablets, and smartphones. The pings, vibrations, and other notifications signaling to you that a voicemail, email, text message, or social media update has arrived is a constant source of distraction. The best thing you can do to focus is to turn off your technology and focus on the task at hand to avoid distraction or interruption.

Assess and evaluate your progress

Have a periodic readjustment of your goals and actions are done. Assess the outcome of changes you make for working on priorities. Constantly remind yourself of your ultimate goals. You may create a vision board as a constant reminder of what you are working toward.

You may check your log where your time goes for say one week. Analyze it and determine what you can cut out. Know what level is your attention span. Look at the remainder of your tasks and see what you can do faster, better and smarter. Don’t hesitate to rearrange your schedule to get to your priorities. The “why” behind the goal should serve as your motivator.

Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps, they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them. -Jack Canfield

After a long period of concentration, you need to regenerate and keep up your energy. Take a short break doing unfocused activities to give your body and mind time to rest and recover. When your energy is fading and seems likely to run out, take a break, a nap, a brisk walk, stretch, have a conversation with someone, relax listening to music, or meditate.

Do whatever that takes you back to regain your energy. A brief retreat will give you renewed vigor and a sharper mental focus.

Reward yourself for goals achieved. Have a snack on healthy foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables during the day and drink lots of water.

“If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” – Russian Proverb

Conclusion

The secret to staying focused is right within us. Remember this from Stephen Covey: “two of our greatest gifts are time and the freedom to choose.” Make your choice wisely to be productive.

Manage your priorities and expectations realistically. One day is not the same as the others, but if you have a strategy or plan, you can rearrange your plan faster and be more productive.

In the end, it is all about getting things done. It is difficult to always perform to the best every time but if you can manage your focus well, returning to your goals after a little detour will be a breeze.

According to Daniel Goleman, the link between attention and excellence is behind almost all of our achievements. Your attention span and focus are great assets. Staying focused is a skill that you should develop to the fullest to be more productive, to make things better, to reach your goals, and to maintain healthy relationships.

How do you train your brain to stay focused?