Focus: The Ultimate Guide on How to Improve Focus and Concentration
Focus and concentration can be difficult to master. Many people want to learn how to improve focus and boost concentration. But actually doing it? We live in a noisy world and constant distractions can make focus difficult. Luckily, this page contains the best ideas and research on how to get and stay focused.
What is Focus?
In order to concentrate on one thing you must, by default, ignore many other things
- Focus can only occur when we have said yes to one option and no to all other options
- As Tim Ferriss says, “What you don’t do determines what you can do.”
Focus on the Process, Not the Event
We see success as an event that can be achieved and completed.
- If you want to become significantly better at anything, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it.
- Focusing on outcomes and goals is our natural tendency, but focusing on processes leads to more results over the long-run.
How to Improve Concentration
Choose an anchor task
- Assign one (and only one) priority to each work day
- Manage your energy, not your time
- Schedule creative tasks for the morning
- Never check email before noon
- Work in full screen mode
- Leave your phone in another room
- Restart your computer at a later time
30 Days to Better Habits: A simple step-by-step guide for forming habits that stick
Take the guesswork out of habit-building with 11 email lessons and a 20-page PDF workbook
- Learn a framework that works for any habit, from getting fit to saving for an early retirement.
Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy for Focused Attention
Focused attention comes from focusing your attention on what matters and eliminating what doesn’t
- Warren Buffett uses a simple 3-step productivity strategy to help his employees determine their priorities and actions
- Step 1: Ask the pilot to write down his top 25 career goals
- Review the list and circle the most important ones
- At this point, the pilot has two lists
- The 5 items he circled were List A, and the 20 items he had not circled were list B
- Everything he didn’t circle became his Avoid-At-All-Cost list
- This forces you to make hard decisions and eliminate things that might be good uses of time, but aren’t great uses
Why Can’t I Focus?
Most healthy humans have a brain that is capable of focusing if we get the distractions out of the way
- Instead of doing the difficult work of choosing one thing to focus on, we often convince ourselves that multitasking is a better option
Measure Your Results
Your brain has a natural desire to know whether or not you are making progress toward your goals, and it is impossible to know that without getting feedback
- Measure your progress
- We all have areas of life that we say are important to us, but that we aren’t measuring
- The things we measure are the things we improve
- It is only through numbers that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse
Concentration and Focus Mind-Hacks
Some additional ways to improve concentration and make sure you’re giving each task your focused attention
The Myth of Multitasking
Technically, we are capable of doing two things at the same time.
- What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once.
- During any single instant, you are concentrating on either one or the other, and your brain has to switch your focus very quickly from one task to another.
How to Focus and Increase Your Attention Span
Overcoming our tendency to multitask and focus on one thing at a time
- Knowing what to focus on
- Directing your energy and attention
- Deciding the one thing that you should commit to doing
- Having a clear sense of direction