Staying Focused at Work
Welcome back, everyone! Today, we’re here to talk about one of the biggest keys to success in personal and professional endeavors. And that is… the ability to focus and eliminate all “outside noise.” Working from home comes with several additional challenges, as we are sometimes lacking the motivation to even leave our own bedrooms! But we are here to ensure that you maintain motivation and the ability to plug-in by following the steps below…
Avoid Multi-tasking with these Steps…
- Ditch Your Phone: First things first, your phone will almost always be your main point of distraction. Whether this is from personal calls, texts, or social platforms, our phones keep our eyes glued to screens. Whenever possible, instead utilize online work chat platforms like Microsoft Teams or Jabber, and ditch your phone! The best way to completely mitigate distraction is not to create the opportunity for it at all. If this isn’t an option for you, we recommend scheduling phone breaks throughout the day instead of keeping it next to your desk: explore 10 minutes breaks every few hours or a gap for lunch as our top strategy!
- Create Schedules: Another way to stay accountable is by creating daily schedules highlighting goals, tasks, deadlines, and other priorities of your work, week, or even month! Doing so will help you stay in line with an organized list and also keep you from getting lost amongst a variety of tasks and ideas.
- Be On… and Off! When you’re on… be on. And when it’s time to be off,… be off! There is nothing more important than making time spent in and outside of your job meaningful. Trying to spread yourself across both responsibilities at once will leave your productivity and final outcomes at half the value that you can truly reach! Always remember, you’re not expected to work around the clock for a reason, so put in effort when appropriate, and know when it’s time to unplug.
- Time blocking! A key phrase that’s been gaining serious traction over the last few years is “time blocking.” So, what does it mean and how do you achieve this strategy of time management and optimization? We encourage you to batch out certain obligations or facets of your role across different points of the day. Maybe this means you dedicate your morning hours to necessary meetings, your afternoon to online training courses, your lunch hour to a walk away from your screen. This will take time and practice, but entering a workday and having that sense of organization will allow you to optimize your time and focus on certain tasks without having intrusive thoughts about what you “could be doing” in addition!
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