4 Tips for Staying Focused to Help Improve Your Productivity
By Gina Wynn
In the lab or the office, working with precision and efficiency is essential for producing accurate results and maximizing the company budget. However, frequent interruptions from text or email notifications, for example, can derail these goals for even the most conscientious workers.
The rise of technology has made society increasingly dependent on cell phones, computers, and other devices that connect us to websites and apps designed to make our lives easier. And while they do enable real-time communication and unparalleled access to information, studies show that they may be hijacking our attention spans and productivity and decreasing the quality of our performance.
How to Help Reclaim Your Focus
Depending on the complexity of your task, it can take eight to 25 minutes to regain your focus after an interruption, according to University of California (UC) Irvine research cited in the UC Berkeley article “The Impact of Interruptions.” Task-switching can also affect the quality of your work. UC Irvine data shows that it only takes a 2.8-second interruption to cause you to make twice the number of computer errors.
Here are a few things you can do to help tune out the barrage of distractions you’re exposed to during the day, according to Johan Hari, author of “Stolen Focus, Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again:”
1. Commit to Tasks in Advance and Stick to Them
To avoid interruptions and task-switching and improve focus, you must first commit to changing your behavior. Plan to turn off the sound on your phone and keep the device in your bag or a locker while you’re at the bench—and stick to your plan. You can also commit to turning off your notifications for email and other workplace communication platforms on your devices and designate times for when you’ll check your messages every day.
2. Seek Out a Flow State
If you have trouble tuning out the distractions preventing you from completing a task, make a conscious decision to regain your concentration. In his book, Hari emphasizes the importance of achieving a flow state when you work, recounting his interview with psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the developer of flow theory.
“This is when you are so absorbed in what you are doing, that you lose all sense of yourself, and time seems to fall away,” Hari described. You can only achieve flow by monotasking, and it requires all your brain power to be dedicated to accomplishing one goal that is meaningful to you. Flow states can make difficult tasks painless and even pleasurable, and lead to greater productivity.
3. Take Time Away from Social Media
By design, social media aims to hold your attention as long as possible to fix your eyeballs on revenue-generating ads. Social media companies and other tech firms track our demographic information and preferences. This helps them create algorithms for serving up content that suits our interests and evokes emotion to keep us engaged.
Consequently, when we think we’re going to check our feeds for a few minutes, we may end up scrolling through rapidly changing content for hours, which takes a toll on our ability to focus on larger chunks of information.
Take steps to reverse some of this damage by taking periodic long-term breaks from social media. You can announce to your friends when you leave and come back so they know when they can expect to hear from you.
4. Let Your Mind Wander
If you need to run an errand in your building or grab a coffee in the cafeteria, leave your phone behind. It’s important to let your mind wander away from your immediate surroundings during your downtime to connect your past and recent learnings, according to Hari. Try going for a lunchtime walk and give your mind time to roam. You’ll return refreshed and have better ideas.
Be Mindful of Potential Pitfalls
If you feel like your mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be and you find your attention-span waning, don’t despair. Just being conscious of the factors that are working against our ability to think deeply is a step in the right direction. As individuals, we might not be able to control the broader changes taking place in society, but we can control our own efforts to reclaim focus in our personal lives and at work, where precision and productivity are paramount.
Gina Wynn is a Thermo Fisher Scientific staff writer.
