How To Stay Focused At The Office
Below are 7 easy tips you can use to assist you to stay focused when you are at work.
- Set Goals Daily
When you are able to set goals daily it can help you to increase your overall productivity. Without goals, it is easy to become distracted, whether it involves procrastination or allowing other people to distract you.
When you set goals, it helps you to stay motivated and assist you with remaining focused in the office.
To include these habits into your daily life, it becomes important to write down a plan of what you would like to achieve when your working day comes to an end. For instance, write a to-do list for every working day. You can refine this further by detailing what you should be doing every hour of the day.
- Make Sure You Feel Comfortable
When you prepare for work for the next day, it essential to do so with a mindset that is positive.
Research conducted by the University of Chicago suggests, that creating your plans with a mindset that is positive, helps you to reach a state of “flow”, where you are able to tackle even the most challenging tasks with enjoyment rather than becoming frustrated.
The way to go about this is to make sure you feel comfortable and confident in your abilities and what you have to do at the office. If you are not able to do this, you will probably find it a difficult task to concentrate on the tasks you need to complete in the office.
Cruising through each day is just one of the methods to get into a “state of flow”. Another effective technique includes meditating when you wake up before you leave home for the day. Meditation is a great way to help you feel more prepared for your working day.
- Organize Each Task
As we mentioned in the first tip, creating your to-do lists can assist you with completing your plans for the day and to help you to remain focused while at work.
However, if you have many tasks you need to complete in a day, organizing each one becomes important.
There are many task management methods you can use, whether it involves tools such as Google Calendar, or Any.do, or using a traditional “grocery list” method. The best way to go about organizing your assignments is to base each one on its importance.
If it helps you, divide the larger task into smaller steps. In this way, you will feel like you have accomplished something when you complete each subtask.
- Turn Your Notifications Off
Let’s face it, many of us are completely addicted to social media platforms and our phones. Research conducted by Deloitte discovered that the majority of American adults check on their phones around 52 times on any given day.
Most people, and maybe this also applies to you, are unable to resist checking on notifications, due to something known as FOMO, which stands for Fear of Missing Out.
This often results in causing anxiety, because we might be leaving messages that are important unopened, which makes us prone to looking constantly at our phones.
This is a habit that cannot result in productivity, and the best way to stop this habit in its tracks is to turn your notifications off. This will include your personal email inbox, social media, or any other unimportant websites.
The way to let go of this habit is to set up a few rules. To assist you in remaining focused while you work, only open emails every 2 to 3 hours as opposed to constantly doing it every 10 to 15 minutes.
If you are unable to resist the temptation, block the websites that you do not use during working hours. Cold Turkey is one of the tools that provide a way to block browsers or even your entire computer.
- Establish A Few Working Agreements
In some cases, what will lower your abilities to remain focused has nothing to do with you, and rather with your actual surroundings. Some office environments can be noisy.
However, there is nothing wrong with discussing with your coworkers that they should save their chats for the lunch break, and rather only discuss things that are related to work while in the office. You might want to suggest that everyone agrees on “deep work” hours, where everyone should try to remain quiet over a certain time-frame of the day. A quieter environment is one of the best ways to concentrate and get your job done.
- Don’t Forget To Take Breaks
It is possible to work for 8 hours straight without taking a break, but this does not make you a more efficient worker. In fact, it will usually bring about boredom, eventual burnout, and significant fatigue.
It is important to include a few breaks when you are planning your activities for each day.
The Pomodoro Technique is one of the time management methods which you can use to plan your scheduled breaks. This is a method that includes working for 25 minutes followed by taking a quick 3 to 5-minute break. After 4 cycles of working for 25 minutes and your 3 to 5-minute breaks, plan for a longer break of around 15 to 30 minutes.
- Get Plenty of Good Quality Sleep
It is said that we need around 7-8 hours of sleep per night to be at our best. If you are tired and struggle to focus chances are that something is preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Try stress-relieving activities like yoga and meditation, eat right and make sure your bed is comfortable. If you have a mattress that has seen better days consider replacing it. Take a look at these Tempurpedic mattress reviews.
Great tips for common distractions!