The Art of Distraction-Free Work: Cultivating Focus in Any Environment
Whether you work in a cubicle, an open plan workspace, from home, or any variation of these, you’re bound to be looking for ways to boost your productivity. This can be achieved when your focus improves.
But how can you deal with constant distractions, enhance your performance, improve the quality of your work, and reduce stress at the same time?
Below, we help you understand the nature of distractions, briefly unpack the science behind focus, and share strategies that can help up your productivity game. Let’s dive in.
Understanding Distractions
Dictionary definitions of the word “distraction” indicate explanations such as “agitation of the mind” or one’s focus being redirected from an important task to other less important but nevertheless time-consuming tasks.
Ultimately, we know what distractions are. What we may not know (yet) is how to deal with them. There is hope though, because dealing with distractions in our life is a psychological factor and is, therefore, within our control.
With this in mind, next, we explore some of the science behind focus.
The Science Behind Focus
Cognitive science, productivity, and focus researchers have reached quite a simple conclusion: multitasking is counterproductive. However, their findings are profound.
Switching between tasks has the unpleasant consequence of a 40% loss in productivity, 50% more time spent on completing a task, up to 50% more errors, and here’s the staggering one: it lowers one’s IQ by up to 15 points.
There’s more where that came from. It can take the average person between 20 and 25 minutes on average to return to a task after switching. And if that’s not enough, people who multitask tend to experience more stress and anxiety, higher levels of frustration, time, pressure, and effort on the whole. The perfect recipe for burnout and a diminished capacity to deliver quality work.
With the average worker today being productive for only 2h:53 minutes a day, there’s a rising hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience that our brains aren’t wired for frantic and continuous content switching because it affects our bodies’ chemical composition.
Techniques for Cultivating Focus
Below are some key tips to counter the challenge of a lack of focus or poor focus.
1. Creating a distraction-free environment
Your environment has a stronger effect on your focus than your willpower does. To produce some of your best work, you need to work in an environment that is conducive to productivity.
For this reason, you’ll want to:
Close doors (if there are any) so that you aren’t distracted by conversations or interruptions
Remove any distractions, such as your phone, or at least turn off your notifications
Remove clutter from your space so that you don’t inadvertently help your mind wander off on a tangent
The biggest piece of advice we can give you here is to implement small steps at first as you start building new habits. And importantly: Be patient with yourself because every new habit takes practice and time.
2. Mindfulness and meditation techniques
Stilling the mind for a short chunk of time a couple of times a day can do you a world of good. It’s about checking in with yourself regularly and uncover any potential triggers or issues that may be causing you to lose focus and concentration.
It’s also about examining your feelings about the task at hand. It’s perfectly okay to admit to yourself that you could find it stressful or even boring. Acknowledge your feelings and try to reframe the challenge.
A further suggestion we can offer is that you prioritize time to fit these meditation or mindfulness sessions in your calendar. Things that bring value to your emotional wellbeing should be prioritized just as much as the things on our to-do lists.
Finally, whether you are sitting down or going for a walk, practice productive meditation. This is when you use your allocated time to work on a problem, giving it your full attention. If you find your focus drifting to another topic, simply be aware of the shift, and then restore focus on the problem at hand. Practicing this strategy can bring you some unexpected results.
3. Time management strategies
We live in a world of finite resources and time is possibly the most valuable one we have. To ensure that you do deep work and get into a flow, you need to start by setting realistic deadlines. By creating “time pressures”, you’ll quickly be able to avoid procrastination.
Once you’ve set a deadline, consider what you’d like to accomplish during the time block you’ve created. Actionable targets that are broken down into small but manageable chunks can help work feel less overwhelming and offer you a greater sense of satisfaction once you’ve completed it.
Don’t forget to set breaks during your deep work sessions (you can use a Pomodoro app for this), and remember that it’s okay to spend a few minutes not doing anything.
4. Overcoming digital distractions
Digital distractions are a major challenge for anyone in our tech-connected world. One thing you can do is to delay distracting urges for a few minutes. What you’ll notice is that they quickly pass, enabling you to keep focused on your task.
Even if you want to check your inbox or phone’s notifications. Simply tell yourself that you’ll do it in 10 minutes and you’ll quickly start training yourself to avoid digital distractions.
You can also consider using tech to fight tech. Essentially, this means that you use software to block out distractions on your screen by preventing you from accessing certain distracting websites or even browsers and apps for a period of time you choose.
5. Cultivating mental discipline
We said it before but we’ll say it again: You need to be patient and gentle with yourself as you work toward cultivating mental discipline.
The process takes time. It’s all about recognizing what challenges you are facing and taking actionable steps to address them.
Final thoughts
Treat your attention like a tool and train it to work in your favor. Also, recognize that not all work is work. There is something called shallow work, which actually hinders our productivity and the quality of our output. Give yourself the permission to change your concentration and focus habits one step at a time and enjoy the fruitful results of your efforts.
Emil Vasilev is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Inbound Blogging, specializing in Content Marketing and Outreach Strategies. Besides his passion for digital marketing, he likes football, fitness, and running. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.