Cheryl
5 Boosts that Will Improve Focus and Productivity at Work
Today, we all have many demands on our time. At home, you have family, friends, and maybe even work still vying for your attention. At work, you have your personal life, coworkers, technology, and general stuff snapping fingers in hopes of gaining your attention. But you don’t have to live like that. There are small and simple changes you can start implementing that will make significant differences to your focus and productivity at work.
- Use a Schedule
Do your best to create a schedule, especially for your work time, that will give you a clear plan of your day and what is expected. This will allow you to move from one task to the next without having to stop and decide what to do next. Also, keep in mind that schedules are not the end-all-be-all, sometimes things change.
- Make a Clean Workspace
Be it your kitchen counter while you are cooking dinner or your desk at work, keeping a clean and tidy workspace will help clear the mental clutter as well. There will be fewer distractions and you won’t waste time cleaning your desk. If there is continual clutter, figure out why. Do you need all that? Can you give some things away? Can you file some things? A clean area is more inviting to get work done.
- Put Blinders On
This means all the blinders. Turn your phone on silent, stop notifications, and keep unnecessary tabs closed on your computer. Technology is fantastic, but it can also serve as a major distraction throughout our workday. Take into consideration how much time you spend clicking and scrolling needlessly.
- Let Others Know You’re Working
Put a sign on your door, put on your headphones, or whatever it is you need to do to minimize distractions from other human beings. Letting others know that you’re working and prefer not to be disturbed will give you time to work and is a polite way of saying, “I’m happy to help but not until later.” It can give family and friends some clues about your schedule. Particularly if you are homeschooling, let them know that during certain hours you are not available to chat. You have to set limits on how much other people can take of your time.
- Know Your Habits
We all have habits that dictate when we are most and least productive. Pay attention to yours and use them to your advantage. If morning is your most productive time of the day, then that is the best time to shut your door and work on the big, hard tasks of the day. If you know that you always hit a wall right before lunch, use that time to pick up your desk and take a stroll to the water cooler.
Finding your work groove can be challenging; however, taking the time to make small steps in the right direction will allow you to create a workday that is productive and meaningful.
4 Habits to Help You Focus Better
Focusing comes in different forms for everyone, some like to listen to music to help them focus, while others want complete silence. Keep reading for four tips that can help you find your focus.
- Have a Daily Plan
You should wake up every morning with a plan of what your day will look like. It is good to start thinking about this the night before and make some preparation if you need to. This doesn’t have to be a detailed schedule that outlines every minute. But having a plan in place will eliminate small decisions that can get you off track. Having a plan will also give you a clear goal for how your day should progress and end. Take time every evening to write out (not just in your head) the plan for the next day. It can include what you will have for breakfast through what order you will complete your work in. It may also be helpful to prep items such as meals, coffee, and clothing to keep you on track.
- Moment of Enjoyment
Every day take at least a small amount of time to do something you really enjoy. This can be peace and quiet over your coffee in the morning, a piece of candy in the afternoon, or snuggles with a pet or loved one in the evening. Having that moment of enjoyment will give you a respite from all the to-do’s that fill your day and give you time to reset and prepare for what comes next. Sometimes you can take what is a “work” break. You might stop working on the computer to pull a few weeds in the garden. Simply because it is a different kind of work you can get a few minutes of enjoyment and rest from what you were doing.
- Be Persistent
If a task isn’t coming easily to you, feel free to walk away for a few minutes or even a day. But be persistent with the process and don’t give up. Allowing yourself to bounce from task to task to avoid the difficult work will leave you with a list of half-done tasks and a brain that is running in a million different directions. If tasks are half-done, ask yourself “why”? Are they commitments you have made that you really have no incentive to finish? As you find your core purpose, and arrange your tasks around that, it will eliminate extraneous tasks.
- Have a Day Off
“There’s no rest for the wicked and the righteous don’t need it” is a familiar turn of phrase that praises the busy. But we all know that it isn’t the truth. We all need a day off to rest, reset, and recuperate. We also need time with our families and friends to fill our cups and remind us why the hard days are worth it. When God created the world he made six days for work and one for rest.
Focusing better is both a mindset and a physical act that you must prepare your mind and body for. Be sure that you are doing everything in your power to set yourself up to the best of your ability.
5 Hints to Regain Lost Focus During the School Day
It happens to everyone at some point. You’re moving along, zipping through your to-dos at work or at home, and then BOOM. Something happens around you, and your focus and productivity train is derailed. It can be tricky to find your footing and get back into your groove. However, these five hints can minimize the chance of derailment and help you to get back on track after losing focus.
1. Silence Your Phone (and computer)
We are all guilty of it. Every time your phone rings, vibrates, or lights up, you automatically look away from your task to glance at your phone. Stop those notifications, silence your phone, or put it out of your line of vision (in a desk drawer or up on a shelf). This is especially important during home school.
Set boundaries when you can and cannot be contacted. Most calls can wait. If you have to use the phone, for example, to set up an appointment, do it when there is a legitimate home school break. Having a disciplined homeschool is as much as setting disciplines for yourself and the phone, as it is setting disciplined activities and a schedule for the children.
2. Close Your Door
Close your door to the world during school. This is school time. It is not time for friends or mother or mother-in-law to call. You will find some will respect this. Some may not. You have to set boundaries. You also have to set up your own home “closed door” policy. This is a time when you can get school planning or other jobs done while the children do a quiet activity such as reading or watching a documentary. Pureflix, a subscription service, has some good home school materials in this respect. You have to eliminate the distractions so you can accomplish what you need to accomplish.
3. Take Breaks
Taking breaks probably seems counterintuitive. However, taking breaks from work can give your mind a rest too. Also, if you know you have a ten-minute break coming up, it will provide you with an incentive to push through a laborious task. You need a break. Your kids need a break. You might find an online ten minute exercise routine they can do during as a break. With the smaller children, there are lots of song and exercise activities to go along with learning the days of the week and months of the year. While electronics can certainly be an over-whelming distraction, you can use them to your advantage if you use it judiciously.
If you live in the country, or have a back yard, send the children out for a short break from time to time while you take a break as well.
4. STOP Multitasking
There is no way around this, but multitasking is killing your productivity and your focus. Multitasking means you are splitting your attention between multiple items, which means you are not giving anything your full attention. Stop it. Focus on one task at a time.
Multitasking can come from having unfinished business elsewhere. In other words, you may be trying to set the dentist appointment while helping Johnny with his spelling. It is better to follow other suggestions on this topic of setting up certain times in your schedule to deal with unresolved activities. If you write them down and get them out of the way, you will be less tempted to multi-task.
5. Remove Internal Distractions
Internal distractions are the little ideas, to-dos, and random thoughts that pop into your head while working on a different task. When this happens, take a moment to write down that thought/to-do, and then get back to work. Writing it down will allow your brain to let go of it while you get back to work, and you can revisit it later. Later on as you review the list you may find that some of the things you thought were urgent aren’t that important any more.
Regaining lost focus is possible. With practice and the correct tools in place, you can restore your focus quickly and with little downtime.
5 Tips to Eliminate Distractions to Gain Better Focus
Distractions come in all shapes and sizes and can ruin even the best laid of plans and intentions. Some distractions cannot be helped or ignored (fire alarms or crying babies), but many of our daily interruptions can be. Keep reading for five simple steps to minimizing and eliminating disturbances that are keeping you from focusing on what matters most.
- Turn Off Notifications
We love notifications. From our phone, from our computers, from everything. Turn them off. You do not need to know every time you get a like or a retweet. You can also turn off notifications from other apps (health, email, news, coupons), and do the same with notifications that come from your computer for emails and ads. This will significantly lower the number of distractions you will have throughout a day.
- Put Away Your Phone
If at all possible, put your phone on silent or away for a set amount of time. You will no longer be tempted to check-in needlessly every few moments, and when it does go off, you won’t know it. The vast majority of messages received throughout the day do not need immediate responses anyways. If you still worry about missing important calls or texts, change your settings to allow messages and calls from specific people.
- Only Necessary Programs
If you are working on your computer, be sure only to have open the programs that are necessary for your project. Are you working on a spreadsheet? Close your email and internet browser. Closing the unneeded programs will limit distractions and having the programs you need already opened will save you time and energy.
- Clear All the Clutter
Clutter comes in many forms. Physical clutter on your desk, visual clutter (notes stuck to your monitors), or mental clutter. Get everything put up, cleaned up, and out of your head so you can focus on your task at hand and not worry about distractions.
Keep your house clean and picked up. Keep your home school area clean and organized. Enlist the children in these tasks. It will much easier for you to homeschool in an orderly environment, than a disorderly one.
- Prepare Your Home School Area
Decide where you will home school and prepare a dedicated area accordingly. Purchase the supplies you need and keep them handy in an organized way. Make sure your room is the right temperature. Have the children get a drink of water or use the bathroom before school begins. Set a standard that school time is school time and needs to be respected accordingly. Having everything and everyone ready for school means the children (or you) will not be leaving the home school area frequently.
Taking a few moments to prepare yourself, your children and your home school area can go a long way in helping all of you maintain focus and complete projects promptly.
5 Things You Should be Doing to Improve Focus During Home School
Are you someone that skips from task to task at work without spending a significant amount of time on any one thing? You probably are if you’re reading this article… but that’s okay, you’re here now, and we are going to work on it. Keep reading to learn the 5 things you should be doing at work to improve your focus and productivity.
- Respond, Don’t React
Immediate reaction is something we all feel like we have to do. New email? Read, react, and hit send. New to-do pops up on your phone? STOP. First, unless something is marked “Immediate Action Needed,” it can probably wait. Stop reacting immediately and instead take time to work through, think, and respond when you’re ready.
- Hardest First
It can be hard getting everything done. A trick is to not put it off, do it now, get it done the night before. This will get it out of the way so you can enjoy the rest of your day and stay focused on your home school routine. A good motto is “Do it now.”
Learn to get work done the night before. Throw laundry in the washing machine at night so it is partly done by the next day. Get the dishes done the night before, don’t let them sit in the sink. Learn to finish a day’s work in a day, that way, when morning comes, and school is ready to start, you are ready to start with a clean slate of fresh energy.
- Stop Time-Sucks
Time-sucks come in many forms. Notifications, social media, and cleaning out your deleted email files are great examples. You are giving up your valuable time to those things that can wait, and instead, most likely creating a backlog of work for yourself. Do whatever it is you need to do to remove the temptation and get back to work.
Sometimes something like deleting emails can be done at a different time, for example, when you are on hold waiting to talk to someone on the phone. Think about some time wasters and how to reduce the work load. Unsubscribe from unnecessary email lists. Set up folders for incoming emails. For example, you probably get notifications when you pay bills. By making folders, or labels as they are sometime called, in the email provider, you can automatically or semi-automatically send emails to your folders. This will save you time.
- Make a To-Do List
A game plan for your day is possibly the most valuable tool you have at your disposal. Simply knowing what all you need to do and what other commitments you have will give you a clear view of what your day will look like. A simple piece of paper with a time ladder and checkboxes will do the trick. Or you may want to get a planner to help you. There are planners that are set up specifically for home school moms.
- Work in Chunks
Break your day up into chunks by time. Working for forty-five minutes with a ten-minute break will not only make the day go by faster but will also help you learn to gauge how long specific tasks take and where your time is being used. Learn how to adjust these chunks of time for your own home school situation.
Following these suggestions will help you train yourself to work, respond, and plan your day in a way that is most productive for you and your children. This will look different for everyone, but with time and practice, you can become more effective.