PDF Summary:The Master Guides: Focus, by Shortform

Do you often feel that there isn’t enough time to finish all the projects you’d like to get done? Does it seem that when you try to concentrate, your attention gets pulled in a thousand directions? Many authors agree that the ability to focus—to concentrate on an individual task—is key to success and fulfillment, not just in your career but also in your personal life. They also agree that focus is a skill you have to learn through practice, deliberate repetition, and strategies to minimize distractions.

In Shortform's Master Guide, we’ve gathered the best strategies from the experts—including psychologists, productivity gurus, and business consultants—to help you harness your attention to achieve any goal. We’ll talk about what focus is (and why it’s so hard to do) and provide a step-by-step process for improving your focus, from removing distractions from your environment and disconnecting digitally to maintaining your motivation and refining your approach. Whether you’re a student, an entrepreneur, or a professional, you’ll find practical and effective techniques for honing your concentration in any area of life or work.

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Step 2: Set the Stage

Because distraction is the enemy of focus and many triggers of distraction come from your environment, it’s essential to take control of your environment. Consider these tips from the experts.

Tip #1: Optimize your physical space. Tracy recommends that you make sure you have everything you’ll need in front of you before you begin, so you’re not distracted by looking for things later. Clear your desk by setting aside unrelated work so you have only one task in front of you. Assemble all the documents and materials you’ll need and keep them within easy reach. Ensure that your work area is comfortable and as distraction-free as possible. The cleaner and more organized it is, the easier it will be to get started and work efficiently.

Tip #2: Take advantage of daily rhythms and routines. In Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey recommends that you choose when to focus based on your schedule, your energy levels, and your tasks. Attention requires both time and energy, so schedule your focus sessions when you have both available. Knapp and Zeratsky also emphasize the importance of determining whether you function better in the morning, afternoon, or evening. For some people, the early morning is when they’re able to concentrate best. For others, late at night is the only time when they’re able to eliminate distractions.

McKeown suggests that after identifying the best time of day to focus, make your daily plan a routine. Establishing a routine is a powerful technique for accomplishing essential tasks because when you follow a routine, you free up mental space. With a routine, you can act automatically without expending energy figuring out what’s next or fighting the pull of nonessential distractions.

Tip #3: Make commitments to yourself. Eyal suggests making precommitments as a way to minimize the power of distraction. He defines “precommitments” as choices you make while in an undistracted state that will help guide your behaviors when you’re tempted by distraction. Some precommitments make it more difficult to do something undesirable. This extra bit of difficulty gives you a moment to pause and stop yourself from becoming distracted. Some precommitments use money as an incentive, while others align your behaviors with the identity you want to have—such as that of a person who finishes what they start.

Step 3: Create a Schedule

The most basic tool for sticking to a routine is a daily schedule. If used effectively, a schedule can help you prioritize and focus on everything that’s important in your life, not just your duties at work. Productivity experts agree on the benefits of using a schedule to your advantage and offer various strategies as well as ways to use your schedule to make space for your personal life.

Tip #1: Plan out everything that you need to do throughout the day. Newport points out that when you set specific goals by planning out what you’ll work on in advance, you’re less likely to switch to other tasks. He recommends breaking your tasks into half-hour blocks, making sure to schedule buffers to handle emergencies or tasks that run over their allotted time.

Tip #2: Block off time to focus, and protect it. Knapp and Zeratsky point out that you’re not the only one with the power to schedule your time. Your supervisors, colleagues, customers, family, and friends will frequently make demands on your schedule. Therefore, when organizing your day, the first thing you must do is block off time to focus on your most important task. If your calendar can be viewed by others at your workplace, this lets them know that you’ve set aside time for your specific project.

Be firm with the time you’ve set aside for yourself, but also make sure that you use that time constructively. Tracy recommends that you treat it like an appointment, and keep it. Also, your blocked-off time doesn’t have to happen at the office. Some people find it’s productive to get up early and work for several hours at home, where there are fewer interruptions. Mapping out your time in a planner helps you build your time around getting your most important tasks done without interruption.

Tools for Managing Your Focus Time

Eyal offers Timeboxing as a way of organizing your calendar by dedicating blocks of time to specific activities. For example, you might timebox “read to kids” or “go through emails.” Timeboxing helps you balance your responsibilities and stick to what you’re meant to be doing. You decide what you'll do and when you’ll do it. This can stop small, easy tasks from distracting you, because you know they’ll get done at another time.

When working with smaller increments of time, Knapp and Zeratsky suggest you use a timer as a cue to stay focused on your task. This is known as the Pomodoro Technique, invented by Francesco Cirillo. Using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer—“pomodoro” is Italian for “tomato”—Cirillo would work for 25 minutes before stopping abruptly for a five-minute break. It’s been shown that a regular, brief break from work can help to maintain long-term attention.

Tip #3: Include personal time in your schedule. In addition to blocking off time for work, Eyal argues that you should schedule regular time with your children, your partner, and your friends. In Indistractable, he says that this time is a commitment, not something that can be pushed aside for another activity or interrupted by your email or social media. Without maintenance, your relationships easily dissipate, and so your plans with friends and family need to be regular, set events in your schedule, not items on a to-do list.

Step 4: Disconnect Digitally

Digital technology clamoring for your attention can interrupt your schedule. To truly focus, you have to learn to control your relationship with technology so that it doesn’t control you. Manage your technology use with the following tips.

Tip #1: Turn off your email. Tracy insists that just because someone sends you an email doesn’t mean you owe them your time. As many as 80% of the emails you receive aren’t important, and most of those remaining can probably be put off. Only around 5% require an immediate response. Newport goes into more explicit detail about how to curb email use. He suggests ways to compose your messages so that they include all the necessary details and don’t result in an email back-and-forth. He also recommends giving yourself the freedom to ignore any communication that isn’t essential.

Tip #2: Turn off the internet. Newport says to schedule in advance when you’ll use the internet and avoid it completely outside those times. Keep a notepad nearby where you record any ideas you need to revisit once you’re online again. If you get stuck by not being able to access the internet, then move on to another task. Knapp and Zeratsky make a similar suggestion: If you often feel distracted by questions you would normally look up on the internet, keep a notebook to write those questions down and look up the answers later.

Tip #3: Turn off your smartphone. As tech industry insiders, Knapp and Zeratsky proclaim that the single most pernicious device that impinges on your ability to focus is your smartphone. They recommend deleting all social media apps, games, and even your email from your phone. If that’s too extreme, they suggest you turn off all notifications and remove the apps from your homescreen, forcing you to choose when to use each app. Finally, you can leave your phone at home, in another room, or even in a locker if one’s available. In other words, turn your phone into a tool that serves you, and not the other way around.

Step 5: Take Breaks

Even if you eliminate all sources of distraction, it’s still impossible to focus all the time. Take time to recharge, but do so in a productive way that lets you quickly refocus your attention. Fatigue is real, so be kind to yourself when your focus wanes and consider using mindfulness practices to restore yourself.

Tip #1: Beware of attention fatigue. Goleman explains that attention fatigue occurs when our brains are exposed to a prolonged or demanding task that requires sustained concentration. Once attention fatigue sets in, it becomes more difficult to maintain focus on a task and to process information effectively. Your attention might need restoration if you notice a decrease in your ability to complete tasks effectively and comprehend what you're learning, an increase in how distractable you are, or an increase in feelings of irritability and impatience.

Tip #2: Practice self-compassion. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal believes that instead of beating ourselves up when we experience decreased focus, we should forgive ourselves. In The Willpower Instinct, she says that encouraging words like "don't be so hard on yourself" can stop distraction before it starts.

In Procrastination, Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen concur that self-compassion is a powerful tool. If the step toward your goal that you’re focusing on is more challenging than expected and you find yourself becoming distracted, don’t take it as a sign that you’re inadequate. Instead, take a short break. Knapp and Zeratsky agree that you shouldn’t feel bad about getting stuck, but they encourage you not to give in to distraction. Sometimes it’s better to wait out your mental blocks and keep your mind in the zone.

Tip #3: Refocus by meditating. A time-tested method of improving your focus while resting is to practice mindfulness meditation. Goleman writes that mindfulness develops the capacity of your selective attention, which helps you monitor your own thoughts and get back on task. McGonigal agrees, saying that even a five-minute daily practice of focusing on your breathing and quieting your mind can increase your impulse control. The goal isn’t to eliminate distracting thoughts; the goal is to keep your thoughts from ruling you. The practice involves the simple act of bringing your wandering thoughts back to focus on your breathing.

Step 6: Reward Yourself

The most difficult part of increasing your ability to focus is maintaining your efforts over long periods of time. Here’s how to be consistent.

Tip #1: Use rewards to train yourself. Burka and Yuen insist on the importance of rewarding yourself when you complete activities you’ve been focused on. They explain that rewards release the chemical dopamine, which increases pleasure. Your brain associates this pleasure with the behavior that created it, strengthening the neural pathways linking your work to good feelings. As a result, your brain will encourage you to return time and again to the activity on which you’ve been trying to focus.

Tip #2: Spend time in nature in order to recharge. One reward that several authors suggest is to take a walk through a place where you’re surrounded by trees. Knapp and Zeratsky say that if you can’t get out into nature, at least make time for a walk in a park or a tree-shaded street. Any exposure to nature at all has been shown to alleviate stress. Goleman adds that immersing yourself in nature, even for a short time, is a powerful and simple way to enter states of restful open awareness.

Tip #3: Relax actively, not passively. Goleman recommends getting fully lost in pleasurable activities, as these focus your attention in a relaxed manner and engage all of your senses. Cooking, martial arts, and dancing could be such activities. In Digital Minimalism, Newport argues that demanding activities are more rewarding than passive ones. Dedicating your leisure time to activities such as exercise or creative hobbies energizes you more than idly passing the time. When you learn a new skill or finish a task, it leaves you feeling uniquely proud and accomplished. The more energy you invest in your leisure, the more value you’ll gain.

Step 7: Reflect and Refine

Given the various approaches to focus described by the experts, you’ll have to engage in personal reflection and a little trial-and-error to see what works for you. This will involve developing an understanding of how you make use of your time, how you deal with unexpected disruptions, and what changes you need to make to your process in order to best direct your energy and attention.

Tip #1: Fine-tune your time management. If you schedule time to focus on different tasks, Newport suggests reviewing the accuracy of your time blocks at the end of each day. In Deep Work, he says this will help you set more accurate goals and expectations in the future.

In Procrastination, Burka and Yuen argue that you can build your capacity to work within time’s constraints by developing a realistic sense of how time flows. One strategy for this is estimating tasks’ duration. Before you begin a task, predict how long it will take you. After you’re done, reflect on the difference between your prediction and reality. This exercise will develop your ability to set realistic expectations for how long a task will take.

Tip #2: Assess how well you maintain your focus. As you move through your week, you’ll face unexpected changes in your schedule and will need to make decisions about how to proceed. Covey advises that at the end of each week, stop and consider how the week went. Did you face challenges? How did you handle spur-of-the-moment decisions? Did you successfully stay focused on your goals, and were your expectations realistic? Keeping a daily log of your progress, as Knapp and Zeratsky suggest, will also give you a clearer picture of any adjustments to make in the future. Record whether you maintained your focus, which tactics you employed, and how you might tweak them to your advantage.

By trying what works and what doesn’t for you personally, you can incrementally rearrange your life in a way that will be transformative over time.

Shortform Resources

For more on the psychology of focus, see the following Shortform guides:

• Focus, Daniel Goleman
• Deep Work, Cal Newport
• Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey
• Essentialism, Greg McKeown
• The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal

To learn more about the sources of distraction:

• Indistractable, Nir Eyal
• Stolen Focus, Johann Hari
• Procrastination, Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen

For practical tips on improving your focus:

• First Things First, Stephen Covey
• The One Thing, Gary Keller
• Eat That Frog!, Brian Tracy
• Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport
• Make Time, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky