Biggest Enemies of Focus and How to Overcome Each

Biggest Enemies of Focus and How to Overcome Each

Whoever you are, you can benefit from learning how to find laser focus in daily life.

Thanks to getting better at this, you’ll be able to start new projects with ease and complete them in less time, you will do your work better and will achieve great results.

But to find focus, you first need to get rid of what’s standing in the way of concentration while working. There are a few big enemies of focus and we’re now going to talk about each. Together with that, you’ll see how to overcome it so it doesn’t stop you from concentrating better.

Overthinking

One of the main reasons why we procrastinate is overthinking. It consists of wondering what might go wrong, thinking of situations from the past and comparing them to your current one, playing scenarios in your head. You’re basically letting your mind wander instead of focusing on the activity in front of you and getting the task done.

Overthinking sabotages your focus as it takes you away from the present. Due to the negative nature of the thoughts that pop up in your mind, your self-esteem also lowers and you’re less likely to start working any time soon.

To beat that, practice mindfulness. Build the habit of noticing when your brain is starting to come up with random thoughts and stop it. You are in control, you just need to be aware of what’s happening.

Once your mind is calm and present, it can easily concentrate on the one important thing that you planned to do.

Not knowing where to start

Oftentimes, we don’t find focus and get distracted instead simply because we don’t know where to start.

The solution to this is simple. Get better at planning.

Start by organizing your thoughts. To empty your mind, write down anything you can think of related to the new project you’re about to begin. Then, see which of the ideas on the list are realistic and remove the rest.

Break down everything into smaller steps so each seems doable and doesn’t overwhelm you. We often postpone taking action simply because the time something might take scares us.

Once you have a list of steps, focus only on the first 3 of them. Forget about anything else. Your goal is to include these 3 actions into your daily schedule.

That’s not just simple but won’t take much time so there’s no reason not to do it. When the time comes to get to work, you’ll find focus as your mind will already be prepared to get this done knowing it’s just one easy step.

Fear of failure

Fearing failure is an enemy not just of focus and productivity but success in any aspect of life. It can make you lose hope, compare yourself to others, focus on the negatives, and – ultimately – give up.

There’s no such thing as fighting it, though. In this case, you must let go of it.

Understand that failure is a stepping stone to success. Knowing it exists doesn’t mean you’ll fail. And even if you do, the worst scenario is not usually that bad.

There’s not a single person who succeeded without making a few mistakes. Be okay with that and know it’s part of the journey.

Such a mindset will help you stay consistent with your goals, but also stop procrastinating, find focus more easily and get more done each day.

Social media

We’ve all heard that social media is addictive. To be precise, 210 million people suffer from Internet and social media addition.

Common side effects include the fear of missing out (when you check your newsfeed as often as possible knowing there’s always a new update to like, comment on or just read), information overload (consuming too much unnecessary information online is bad for your mental health), procrastinating (using social media is one of the most common ways to kill some time these days, especially when there’s a long to-do list waiting).

All this is shortening your attention span and leads to being distracted.

Experts suggest you must limit social media usage. That can happen by using an app to block social media sites on your phone for a certain period of the day, such as when you’re doing some focused work.

Another way is to turn off notifications and only allow yourself to log in and check what’s new 2-3 times a day.

Being in a hurry

Some people are used to living in a rush. Because they are always keeping themselves busy and moving from one task to the next, their mind is never at ease and so they can never find the focus necessary to perform well.

Change that by slowing down. It’s good for your productivity but can also help you stay healthy and happy.

Now that you know what the biggest roadblocks to finding focus are and how to eliminate each, you can start working on the first barrier to laser focus and overcome it as soon as possible.