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Over the last couple of months, I’ve been really struggling with not only my focus, but my productivity when it comes to work. I’d be sitting at my desk, a to-do list in front of me, and I’d want to do anything that didn’t involve what was staring me in the face. And the thing is, I love my work. The clients I work with are incredible. The projects I work on on a daily basis are both important and fun. And I’m very professionally fulfilled right now.
But I couldn’t shake this feeling of I DON’T WANT TO and the overwhelming urge to burn it all down and take a nap. It was really starting to affect my mood outside of work, too. I found myself at the end of the day restless, annoyed, and wanting to be completely left alone - something that’s really hard when you have two young kids and a husband.
I bought the audiobook Stolen Focus by Johann Hari a couple of years ago, listened to the first chapter, and then promptly forgot about it. For books like that, I have to be in the right place in order to want to tune in and I just wasn’t there before. But now when my focus had been so interrupted, I figured why not go back to it. If for no other reason than I could get it out of the “unfinished” section of my Audible account.
I’m sure you can see where this is going - instead of it being a book that went in one ear and out the other, it has opened my eyes and caused immediate change in my life. And as a side note - if you do plan on reading this one, I’d recommend the audio version. The author narrates and is actually very expressive while doing so - these books can often feel like such a snore to read because they are filled with stats and findings, but he did a great job of making you feel engaged on what could be a boring topic.
In the book, Hari talks about the various causes that are stealing our focus these days - leading to office workers only being able to focus for three minutes at a time (!!!). As I listened, I heard myself in what he was saying. Constantly distracted, overwhelmed, burnt out. My sleep (while never great) was impacted, my body felt out of alignment. I just didn’t feel good anymore and I desperately wanted to change - especially before the summer hit and I was with my kids all day every day.
I also realized how often both myself and the wider world around me aren’t capable of just sitting and being without distracting ourselves in some form or another - most often with our phones. Sitting at my son’s therapy appointment there are often a few other parents there and every single one of them spends the entire sixty minutes on their phones. When you go to restaurants, you see couples or families sitting together, all on one device or another. And I just didn’t want to be that way. I want to read books, talk to my family, put down my phone and see what’s happening “out there.”
So after listening to the book and thinking through the changes I want in my life, I’ve come up with some small steps that have already made a big difference. If you’re struggling with your focus, feel free to take or leave these steps I’m working through. Maybe they’ll help you, too. But definitely listen to Stolen Focus as well, because while he doesn’t give you a step by step solution, what he does instead is offer you the science behind what is happening in our lives that allows you to draw the conclusions of what might just help you make change in your own life.
How I’m Stealing Back My Focus
Morning Pages - Coined by writer Julia Cameron, these are not a new concept but are something I’ve been interested in trying for a few years. Each morning you’re supposed to carve out time to long form hand write three pages. Because I had been feeling in a funk with my writing, I wanted to see what this might do for me and I’ve been shocked to find that I’m really enjoying this process. I don’t do it first thing in the morning because that doesn’t work for my lifestyle - and I refuse to get up at 5:30 in the morning. But what I have been doing is after school dropoff, after my workout, I sit down at my desk before I start working for the day, and I light a candle and spill whatever is on my mind. I always start by thinking that I’ll never have enough to say, but the pages flow by so quickly. And I’m also finding that as I’m writing my mind is so clear that I’m coming up with new ideas (that I write right into the pages so that I don’t forget them) which has been so fun to see.
No more multitasking - according to Stolen Focus, multitasking is a myth. And honestly, I think most of us knew that. But we’ve been told that it’s something humans are capable of when that’s just not true. Because I’m always striving for superwoman status (why?!), I’d be trying to multitask with the best of them - especially when it comes to work. Rather than focusing on one task at a time, I’d be trying to do them all - write for a client, and jump into the graphics, and to the social media scheduling - I’d be bouncing all over the place. The constant task switching was exhausting because it was using such different parts of my brain. So now I am trying to batch the various tasks - the writing, the planning, the graphics, etc. And staying in one mindset for longer is really helping my brain to calm down - and I’m producing better work that way!
Shutting down email - strangely this has been one of the hardest ones for me. I’d leave my email open as I was working so that when an email came in, I’d be able to respond quickly to it and then move on. I’m that person who cannot stand having unread notifications so seeing unread emails makes my skin crawl. But, much like multitasking, what was happening was that every time I’d see a new email pop up, I’d be instantly distracted wanting to respond to it, or at least see what it was. And with the work I’m doing, nothing is life or death. So if the email sat in my inbox for 30 minutes it is more than okay. So now when I start on a new project, I close down my email, finish the project, and then when I’m done, I check email before moving onto the next project and repeating the process.
Taking breaks between tasks - Similar to both of the steps above, moving from one task directly into another was overwhelming me and making me feel burnt out. So now I’m making the conscious effort to end one task and then get up from my desk for just a couple of minutes to reset before I jump into the next one. Sometimes I even take a real lunch break!
Eating brain food - I despise cooking and am always looking for the easiest route. And that often means frozen foods that aren’t actually healthy for me or doing me any mental favors. So now, I’m prioritizing the foods that both make me feel good and that are good for me mentally. It’s amazing the amount of energy that you can get back when you prioritize foods that are actually beneficial to your body.
Seeking out happy vs. sad news - In the book, Hari talks about how much more we tend to focus on sad or anger inducing news rather than happy news. And seeing horrible thing after horrible thing on social media has been one of the biggest sources of struggle for me in recent years. It makes me feel as if there is nothing good left in the world. And while I do think it’s really important to be informed about what is happening, I also know that I can only shoulder so much before I begin internalizing everything to the point that I feel paralyzed. So I’ve been deliberately seeking out the happy things, while being conscious of when I’m allowing the heavier things into my life.
Slow down on the fire hose of information - and in a similar vein, Hari talks about the fire hose of information that comes into our lives these days. The amount of information that we’re consuming on a daily basis is staggering. So I’ve been thinking about where, when, and from whom I want to consume. Substack really helps with this - rather than spending so much time on social media where I am flooded with content, I’ve been spending more time slowing down and reading what I really want to be reading here on Substack. I get to choose who I engage with rather than the algorithm deciding and that feels really good.
I have some other steps I’m taking when it comes specifically to social media and content that I’ll be talking about in this week’s Sunday Release, but for now these small steps above have really been making a difference for me. Even after just a week or so I already feel so much more clear, energized, and able to focus.
I hope that if you’re struggling the way I have been that this is also helpful for you. I’d love to hear about the things that bring YOU focus - I can use all of the tips!
I need to add this to my TBR! I've been feeling the exact same way, where my brain and attention feels scattered and my body feels sluggish and tired, even if I have slept well. I have a habit of leaving a million tabs open on my laptop (which is of course how my brain feels a lot of the time), the first of which is my email. So many times a day I find myself interrupting my own focus just to hover over the tab to see if something new came in. There's an interesting Hidden Brain podcast episode I listened to (called Finding Focus) about why that is. I'm definitely going to try some of these tips, including Morning Pages ;)