February 14, 2023
Written by UJJI Team
“Only through focus can you do world-class things, no matter how capable you are.”
— Bill Gates
Focus is the word that comes next after the word “goal” or “achievement.” You must have heard the term “focus” endless times in motivational seminars, speeches, and so on. The question, then, is; why do people always bring up the issue of focus? The answer is because, as simple as a goal and the plan to achieve it might be, there is still the tendency of not achieving that goal, and it is because of the focus factor. The moment you lose focus, even if the goal is as simple as getting up from bed, having a bath, and taking breakfast, you will find it challenging to achieve it.
From another angle, our focus has to do with how well we can concentrate and avoid distractions in anything that you are doing. For example, you could be in a meeting or a briefing. While the speaker is going on with his or her presentation, distractions could come from different angles. Examples include notifications of text messages or chats or incoming phone calls. The question then is, what is the essence of multitasking if you can’t use it in such situations? The answer to that is simple, when you multitask, you may do many things at once, but you will realize that you couldn’t do them well because you had divided attention. Something people do when multitasking is prone to mistakes.
The first thing to do is to stay centred. By that, I mean preventing anything that causes nervousness or anxiety in whatever you are doing. That is often the leading cause of divided attention. The reason is that the human mind tends to dwell more on negative thoughts or emotions. The fix for this situation is to replace negative thoughts that could cause anxiety or nervousness in the first place with positive emotions; that way, you’ll be less distracted by the things around you. For example, let’s say you in a meeting, but something else is bothering you. You will notice that you will be distracted by momentarily thinking about it; however, with a mind filled with positive thoughts, you will be motivated to participate and get the most from it entirely.
The second step is a more self-conscious step where you pause to observe your progress in whatever you are doing. For example, if you have been facing a task at a place like work, you might want to take a break to see how far you have gone and to ensure that you’re still on track because sometimes we don’t know that we have been distracted and that we have lost focus.
The next step is to take a break from whatever you’re doing. You could do this by venturing into another task this way, it helps to cool your brain and refresh it, but next time you return to that task.
If you were observant, you would notice that we have just handled multitasking from another approach, but without the pressure of having many tasks at once.
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