“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:
- Align your focus and your values
- Ask new questions to change your focus
- Ask yourself, “What are you rushing through for?”
- Beware of random, intermittent rewards
- Bite off what you can chew
- Breathe
- Capture all of your ideas in one place
- Capture all of your To-Dos all in one place
- Carry the good forward
- Change your environment
- Change your physiology
- Choose one project or one thing to focus on
- Choose to do it
- Clear away all distractions
- Clear away external distractions
- Clear away internal distractions
- Close your distractions
- Consolidate and batch your tasks
- Create routines to help you focus
- Decide to finish it
- Delay gratification
- Develop a routine
- Develop an effective startup routine
- Develop an effective shutdown routine
- Develop effective email routines
- Develop effective renewal activities
- Develop effective social media routines
- Direct your attention with skill
- Do less, focus more
- Do now what you could put off until later
- Do things you enjoy focusing on
- Do worst things first
- Don’t chase every interesting idea
- Edit later
- Exercise your body
- Exercise your mind
- Expand your attention span
- Find a way to refocus
- Find the best time to do your routine tasks
- Find your flow
- Finish what you started
- Focus on what you control
- Force yourself to focus
- Get clear on what you want
- Give it the time and attention it deserves
- Have a time and place for things
- Hold a clear picture in your mind of what you want to accomplish
- Keep it simple
- Keep your energy up
- Know the tests for success
- Know what’s on your plate
- Know your limits
- Know your personal patterns
- Know your priorities
- Learn to say no – to yourself and others
- Limit your starts and stops
- Limit your task switching
- Link it to good feelings
- Make it easy to pick back up where you left off
- Make it relentless
- Make it work, then make it right
- Master your mindset
- Multi-Task with skill
- Music everywhere
- Narrow your focus
- Pair up
- Pick up where you left off
- Practice meditation
- Put the focus on something bigger than yourself
- Rate your focus each day
- Reduce friction
- Reduce open work
- Reward yourself along the way
- See it, do it
- Set a time frame for focus
- Set goals
- Set goals with hard deadlines
- Set mini-goals
- Set quantity limits
- Set time limits
- Shelve things you aren’t actively working on
- Single Task
- Spend your attention with skill
- Start with WHY
- Stop starting new projects
- Take breaks
- Take care of the basics
- Use lists to avoid getting overwhelmed or overloaded
- Use metaphors
- Use Sprints to scope your focus
- Use the Rule of Three
- Use verbal cues
- Use visual cues
- Visualize your performance
- Wake up at the same time each day
- Wiggle your toes – it’s a fast way to bring yourself back to the present
- Write down your goals
- Write down your steps
- Write down your tasks
- Write down your thoughts
- 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.
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