7 Best Ways To Improve Our Focus

7 Best Ways To Improve Our Focus

“One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship. - Jacqueline Leo”

Staying putt indoors during this lockdown is doing wonders to my psyche and helping me introspect a whole lot of things that I am seeing in my life. During one of those surreal moments where I was sitting in the balcony reminiscing nature, with slow gradual sips of that amazing tea that My Mother makes and these slow gradual sips of tea somehow struck a thought that stayed with me for a long time. This is not the first time that this Tea is served to me and neither is this the first time that I am sitting in solitude, but what was different was here was my perspective. I am just not enjoying the taste of the Tea, rather I am living this moment and enjoying every bit of it. And these moments were feeling priceless. This thought occurred to me then, How many of US have ever lived the Moment as it is and FOCUSSED on it wholly? Life is like reflection and it shows just what we depict and show it. In this Mad race, we have somehow and somewhere left behind this urge to Live for the moment and have been running around aimlessly. Its not surprising that most of the people are either living in the guilt of the past or the Fear of the future and strangely, the past is not going to come back, and the Future is yet to come. And in between this present and the past, we have lost track of the present moment. And the ones, that LIVE in the present Moment are the ones who are living LIFE to the fullest. So, what are those key factors that become the prime factor for us to loose focus and what are the mechanisms or methods to overcome this.

Focus is more about choosing a right thought out of the innumerable thoughts running in our mind and gripping a firm control over our mind for a longer period. Its ironical that most of us were often asked to concentrate by our parents/ elders and strangely none of them ever taught us the methods to be deployed to master concentration and neither were they aware about it as well. But then, I wouldn’t blame them cos Focus, and Concentration is something that is learnt individually and there are no means to be taught the same and this traditional incapability of teaching focus has just been cascading from generations together. And this is continuing till date cos No one is particularly aware of this trait.

In order to focus on any thought, we need to understand how our mind works. Because once we understand how our mind works, we can control it and once we know how to control it, we will improve our focus. 

Focus is merely based on 2 things:

1. Awareness - It’s like a glowing ball of light  that can easily float around in our mind

2. Mind - Mind is divided into different sections like happiness, jealousy, food, family, anger etc. 

So, to put it in simple words…. Imagine we’re thinking about some random topic and it would have a direct connection with one of the Mind sections. And these thoughts can be a lot circumstantial i.e. based on that current circumstance, For e.g. Seeing a Mother feed her child we might start remembering our childhood days, Seeing two friends in school uniform and walking might remind us our school days and our childhood friends, We might be waiting for the Bus at the bus stop and the strong aroma of fritters being fried in the nearby food stall will start make us feel Hungry…..These were just some examples to highlight the movement of the glowing ball of awareness. Based on our thoughts, the glowing ball of light (awareness) starts to deviate to one of these Mind sections and lights up the section that becomes the resultant form in our emotions and actions. This is the reason we tend to be sometimes happy, sad or angry etc. However, because we have hundreds of thoughts running on our minds at the same time, the glowing ball of light (awareness) plays a ping pong match between these Mind sections and thus starts distracting us quite often. We can’t avoid distractions, but what we can learn to do over a period is to hold on to one thought for a longer period and start envisioning the pros and cons of that thought and this will improve our focus.

And now, let me highlight some easy to do tasks that will help us slowly improvise our FOCUS towards the larger picture of Life;

Here are the 7 best ways to improve our focus:

1. Meditation/Yoga: A wavering focus is one of the major causes for low productivity at the work place or low grades at school and college. It is this same attribute that students, professionals, entrepreneurs and home-makers alike have been trying to achieve to uplift the quality of their lives. While a lack of focus is the mother of all follies, achieving better concentration is not really that difficult when one knows where to look for help. We all know about the amazing health benefits of Yoga, but the greatest thing amongst all is that Yoga works on changing our internal make-up. According to a recent study conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, practicing yoga daily for 20 minutes can improve brain function and actually focus better on the task at hand. In the study, 30 people performed two tasks involving identifying shapes on a computer screen and found that yoga helped the subjects perform better in comparison to aerobic exercises or no exercise at all. Yoga helped improve concentration and focus by calming the mind and getting rid of distracting thoughts.

2. Avoid Irrelevant Distractions: Based on the task we handle, there can be relevant and irrelevant distractions.;

For e.g. 

Relevant Distractions: We are studying for our exams and the room we are studying in has things/objects related to the subject we're studying. This will help us think of the same subject and decrease the chances of having the glowing ball of awareness to move to any other section in the mind. As a result, focus is maintained…Pasting the Exam Time-Table on the wall, A Picture of our Role Model, A Positive Scenery, A Potted Plant, Open Windows and Exam related Books will continuously remind us about our exams and our goals emitting radiant positivity all around us and thus keeping in check the Glowing ball to stay focused to the STUDY for EXAMS Mind section and not oscillate to any other section.

Irrelevant Distraction: We are studying for our exams and the room we are studying in has things/objects which are related to topics other than what we are studying, then the glowing ball of awareness starts to deviate to that specific section in our mind and tries to scan our memory related to that topic resulting in loosing focus on studying. A Film or Sports Magazine, Headset, Music Player, Games DVD, PlayStation can suddenly ignite action to the glowing ball and make the student waver from his studies and thus cause hindrance to his focus.

3. Listing Down Distractions: The best way to beat the Focus Distractors is to know them. You need to know them to Beat them out. So, it’s always best to have a notebook and list down all the distractions that might come up while doing a task. Post the list out, we need to analyze this list to understand what we can do to counter it and within a span of time we will be able to decrease the number of distractors or even make it Zero. 

4. Avoid Mobiles phones: Mobiles have become a part of our lives and in a way are the biggest distractor and distancer from Family, Friends and to a large extent work as well. People might be working or studying, and they would feel that they will respond to a chat or tweet for a moment and that For a Moment will become hours together on the phone. We have seen families glued to their mobile phones on a dinner table, Friends go out to eat and they are all stuck to their phones. The emotional quotient of being present at that moment with your loved ones is slowly vanishing out. Simple steps like, Keeping the phone away while eating food, Keeping the phones in a Bread basket while eating out and the one who answers the phone has to pay the bill…. such small funny tasks can lead to the simple formula of DISENGAGE and DISCONNECT until later.  And this later is until we finish the assigned task.

5. Loose Money on Distraction: Each time we feel distracted please be honest to yourself and pay a huge amount to one of our family members who usually is not an earning member of the family. This small give away is a kind of reminder for us to be Grippy over our thoughts and emotions and If we really value our money, we would try to get better at saving our thoughts, focus and even Money. And along with this, we will also end up sharing and sparing some money with that person who can use the same for his/her personal needs. 

6. Healthy Body: In today's world, the increasing acceptance of Fast Food as a trending diet is a matter of concern. These junk foods can cause lethargy and make us lazier and have an adverse effect of on our concentration levels and thus make us deviate from our focus. Eating junk food may seem innocent enough until you realize how it's affecting your behavior, cognition and focus. A study published in the "European Journal of Clinical Nutrition" found that children who indulged in a diet high in junk food were more likely to be hyperactive than those who did not. Hyperactive children generally lack focus and may not be able to concentrate on simple tasks. The same could be assumed for adults who eat a diet high in junk food; hyperactivity, a lack of focus and an inability to concentrate could affect your work, your relationships and your lifestyle.

7. Healthy Mind: Being a part of this everyday competition and never-ending competitive environment makes it important and imperative for us to stay Positive always. Multi-tasking at work place increases our stress levels and we need to balance this by giving adequate rest and peace to our mind. We can adopt various methods to de-stress ourselves. Simple methods like spending time with our Loved ones, Singing, Sketching, Cooking, and anything that makes us feel at peace. Anything that soothes our mind and keeps it calm and relaxed should be our first activity. Doing this simple and stress-free tasks will keep our mind healthy and will eventually help us to keep our Focus intact. This is a slow building activity that we have to imbibe in our daily routine to see effective results. Fortunately, focus is a lot like a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it gets.
  

“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” — Bruce Lee 

What separates good from great in life, business or sports is your ability to focus. The ones who are the most disciplined and focused will achieve more than someone who suffers from worry and doubt. Once you make up your mind on something, use a laser-like focus to work toward them and go after it with all your effort.

I hope this article on 7 best ways to improve our focus can help you in some way or the other. If you feel the tips are helpful, you may comment on the article or even share your reviews on Facebook or Instagram. Below are the profile Pages: 

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Stay focused and live every single moment. Happy Life Ahead!!!!!

Writer: Sonu Singh 

Editor: Soumyashree Bangera

Idea Source : Personal Experience and You Tube