Personal focus and high levels of concentration are essential for personal efficiency which leads to great business and personal success. So how do you increase your levels of focus? Read on for The Efficiency Coach’s top eight tips to increase your personal focus…
1. Write down your goals and make them visible
Research has shown that you are more likely to achieve your personal goals if you do three simple things – write them down, tell people about them and make them visible. What can you pin up to your fridge door?
2. Know thy self
Everyone has their own distractions which detracts them from the matter in hand. For the next seven days notice what is distracting you – perhaps it’s your e-mail? Maybe it’s twitter? Maybe it’s your children? When you have identified your top 5 distractions think about what you can do to minimise the distractions. For example, when I have a large amount of work to complete I turn off tweetdeck and outlook.
3. Look after yourself
Good focus and concentration is helped by taking regular exercise, drinking a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day, minimising your intake of fat and sugar, getting a good nights sleep and eating your 5-a-day of fruit and vitamins. Sorry for being a party-pooper…
4. Take regular breaks
You can only focus at an optimum level for a finite period of time. Regular breaks help you to keep up your focus.
5. Write down a list
Whether you call it a to-do list or a ‘must-achieve’ list, writing down what you have to achieve is a must for high levels of focus.
6. Work with your energy levels
Your energy levels will go up and down during the day. Plan the tough stuff which will need 100% focus when you are generally the most bright and alert, and save the enjoyable or easy stuff for when your energy levels are low.
7. Have someone keep you accountable to your goals
There is nothing quite like the feeling of not having a boss anymore. It leaves you free to follow ideas and opportunities that come your way. The downside is you can may never achieve or follow anything through because you are too busy getting distracted. I personally use my own business coach to keep me focused on working towards and achieving my business goals.
8. Play to your strengths
When you are doing something that plays to your natural strengths or talents focus and concentration is easy – you will achieve high levels of output for seemingly little effort. However, when you are not playing to your personal strengths it’s hard to focus and takes large amounts of energy. If you can outsource work that doesn’t play to your strengths, excellent – otherwise, do this type of work when you are at your most alert and motivated.
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