How To Focus with Skill

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power.” — Tony Robbins

Focus is your friend.  You just need to know how to play well together.

Focus is the key to finishing what you start.

It’s also the key to getting results from the time you already spend.

Focus is also one of the most precious assets that you can learn to better direct in the information age, where attention is a premium currency.

Our Focus Gets Tested

Your focus is up against a lot in today’s world.  There are plenty of interesting distractions, attention thieves, and bright and shiny objects that compete for your attention.

To make it worse, your internal distractions are actually more seductive than the external ones.  Internal distractions include anything from internal conflict, to competing priorities, to your mental chatter, worries, and doubts.

If you can master your internal distractions, everything else is a piece of cake.  That’s how you lead yourself with skill from the inside out.

Equip Yourself for the Rest and the Best of Your Life

For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume you’re ready to begin your adventure and learn how to focus with skill.  Better yet, let’s assume you’ve been down that road before and you want some truly powerful methods and techniques for making things happen.

Let’s also assume that you want all the rich rewards that come from your ability to focus, whether it’s simply reaching your goals, getting in great shape, making your dreams happen, or nailing things at work.  To help you on your journey, I’m going to equip you with some of the best methods and techniques for improving your focus.

Improve Your Focus with Proven Practices

Explore the 101 Proven Practices for Focus.   What I recommend is reading the first part of the article that provides key issues and key strategies for focus.  Next, scan and skim the focus guidelines to familiarize yourself with the one-liner reminders.  Lastly, read through the guidelines and identify three that you can immediately put into practice.  The beauty of building your focus as a skill is that it immediately starts paying you back.

101 Proven Practices for Focus at a Glance

Here is a list of the 101 Proven Practices for Focus:

1. Align  your focus and your values
2. Ask new questions to change your focus
3. Ask yourself, “What are you rushing through for?”
4. Beware of random, intermittent rewards
5. Bite off what you can chew
6. Breathe
7. Capture all of your ideas in one place
8. Capture all of your To-Dos all in one place
9. Carry the good forward
10. Change your environment
11. Change your physiology
12. Choose one project or one thing to focus on
13. Choose to do it
14. Clear away all distractions
15. Clear away external distractions
16. Clear away internal distractions
17. Close your distractions
18. Consolidate and batch your tasks
19. Create routines to help you focus
20. Decide to finish it
21. Delay gratification
22. Develop a routine
23. Develop an effective startup routine
24. Develop an effective shutdown routine
25. Develop effective email routines
26. Develop effective renewal activities
27. Develop effective social media routines
28. Direct your attention with skill
29. Do less, focus more
30. Do now what you could put off until later
31. Do things you enjoy focusing on
32. Do worst things first
33. Don’t chase every interesting idea
34. Edit later
35. Exercise your body
36. Exercise your mind
37. Expand your attention span
38. Find a way to refocus
39. Find the best time to do your routine tasks
40. Find your flow
41. Finish what you started
42. Focus on what you control
43. Force yourself to focus
44. Get clear on what you want
45. Give it the time and attention it deserves
46. Have a time and place for things
47. Hold a clear picture in your mind of what you want to accomplish
48. Keep it simple
49. Keep your energy up
50. Know the tests for success
51. Know what’s on your plate
52. Know your limits
53. Know your personal patterns
54. Know your priorities
55. Learn to say no – to yourself and others
56. Limit your starts and stops
57. Limit your task switching
58. Link it to good feelings
59. Make it easy to pick back up where you left off
60. Make it relentless
61. Make it work, then make it right
62. Master your mindset
63. Multi-Task with skill
64. Music everywhere
65. Narrow your focus
66. Pair up
67. Pick up where you left off
68. Practice meditation
69. Put the focus on something bigger than yourself
70. Rate your focus each day
71. Reduce friction
72. Reduce open work
73. Reward yourself along the way
74. See it, do it
75. Set a time frame for focus
76. Set goals
77. Set goals with hard deadlines
78. Set mini-goals
79. Set quantity limits
80. Set time limits
81. Shelve things you aren’t actively working on
82. Single Task
83. Spend your attention with skill
84. Start with WHY
85. Stop starting new projects
86. Take breaks
87. Take care of the basics
88. Use lists to avoid getting overwhelmed or overloaded
89. Use metaphors
90. Use Sprints to scope your focus
91. Use the Rule of Three
92. Use verbal cues
93. Use visual cues
94. Visualize your performance
95. Wake up at the same time each day
96. Wiggle your toes – it’s a fast way to bring yourself back to the present
97. Write down your goals
98. Write down your steps
99. Write down your tasks
100. Write down your thoughts
101. Work when you are most comfortable

Note that if you already use Getting Results the Agile Way, you’re already automatically using many of the key practices.

They are baked into the system.

Focus is the secret sauce behind The Rule of Three, Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection, and Hot Spots.