Sharpen Your Focus With These 4 Tricks

Sharpen Your Focus With These 4 Tricks

You’ve got your workday planned out. You tell yourself that this will be a productive day for you. You take a sip from your glass of cold brew coffee while you wait for your laptop to finish booting up. You get a message on your phone, impulsively you open up your social media account. You say to yourself “just a quick peek”. Before you even know it, you’ve been sucked into a black hole of unproductivity. It’s a real struggle to stay focused at times. Sharpen your focus with these 4 tricks.

Losing focus can happen to just about anyone. But if you are noticing a clear pattern of lack of concentration and your to-do list has grown longer, this is a sign of a deeper problem.

The most likely cause of your inability to concentrate can be found at a cellular level, your cells’ mitochondria, to be exact. And to turn things around and keep brain fog away, you should nourish your brain and your cells with the right type of food.

Tips to boost focus

But apart from paying close attention to your nutrition, there are a few other things that can help you increase your focus.

Implementing these small changes may seem like nothing at first sight. But take note that often, it’s the most trivial things that can chip away at your focus.

1. Start with your work environment

When it comes to setting up a work environment, there is no one formula that you can follow. Some people seem to thrive in chaos and loud noises while others need a clean and quiet environment to do any work.

If you prefer a quiet environment, consider investing in noise-cancelling headphones. Or if sounds do not bother you, you might want to try logging on to websites that mimic the sounds in coffee shops. On the other hand, if you can’t work without listening to music, try finding specially-curated playlists which have been designed to boost concentration.

But how about your desk? Should you keep it clean or leave it messy? Again, that depends on the individual. However, some studies say that having a messy desk has its advantages. In particular, a chaotic environment triggers a response from your brain, prompting you to clean things up. You can harness that response by focusing on your work instead of tidying up.

2. Tame blue light

Blue light can make your eyes tire and age faster.

One way to counter the adverse effects of blue light is to move your monitor closer to the window. This will help minimize your exposure to artificial lights while allowing you to soak up some sunshine.

Make it a habit to limit the time you are exposed to blue light. That includes blue light emitted by your phone. As the day wind downs, put your put away and if possible, out of your bedroom.

3. Establish better habits

Setting up a routine enables you to get work done, no matter how you feel on a particular workday.

Instead of plodding away at your tasks until lunchtime, divide your workday into smaller chunks. This will help you become productive and stave off distractions.

An excellent way to do that is the Pomodoro technique. With this method, you work for 20 to 30 minutes and then take a five-minute break. Once you have completed four work/break cycles, take a longer break, between 15 to 30 minutes.

For your breaks, do not just take a seat in front of your computer, scrolling on social media. Take this as an opportunity to move around.

4. Don’t let email control your day

An email is a powerful tool that can help you stay on top of your tasks. However, you should not be tethered to it and let it control your day.

Avoid the temptation to check your email constantly. Set aside a part of your day to check it and decide immediately, which needs your immediate attention and which ones you can do later.

Better yet, take note of the tasks you get from your email and move it to a task manager app.

You can’t rely on willpower alone

Willpower is a finite resource. Sure, there will be times when you can run through your tasks like an unstoppable freight train fueled by willpower. But what are you going to do when you are running low on this precious resource.

A better alternative would be to boost your focus by eating nutritious food and quality supplements and creating a better work environment and habits.