How to Increase Your Focus (5 Hacks)
Here are five hacks to help you increase your focus.
Focus is the key. It doesn’t matter if we're talking about losing fat or trying to get work done—if you keep getting distracted, you won’t get far in either.
But everything nowadays is trying to grab our attention, making it harder to focus. That’s where these five hacks will help.
1. Care Less
I don’t care about a lot because if you care about everything, you can’t really care about anything. And your focus follows the things you care about. So if you care about a lot of things, you’re focused on a lot of things. And if you’re focused on a lot of things, you’re not focused on anything. Hence why you should streamline the list of things you care about.
I like to break it down into three categories: health, wealth, and relationships. At any given time, most of my focus is allocated to one of those things. Anything else—I don’t have the mental space for. Not the news, not current events, and especially not what anyone else is doing. When my head is clear of all that noise, and I have that one thing that I’m prioritising, my focus is crystal clear.
2. Practice Singular Focus
Even if you remove all distractions, like social media, TV shows, and music, your mind will still wander. Like when you’re working, you might think about your plans in the evening. Or when you’re working out, you might think about what to eat afterwards. It doesn’t seem like a big issue. But when it’s time to focus and your mind keeps wandering off, you’d say otherwise.
The fix is to practice singular focus. That means only focusing on one thing at any given time. So if you’re walking, just walk. If you’re watching a movie, just watch the movie. I don’t recommend it, but if you’re scrolling on your phone, just scroll on your phone. By doing that, you train yourself to get absorbed in whatever it is you’re doing. And that will carry over into the things you want to focus on.
3. Remove Bad Habits
Bad habits take away your focus. Say you’re at your desk and you get the urge to scroll on Instagram. You’re now fighting that urge to stay focused, which is taking away your focus. Or let’s say you’re at the gym and you can’t wait to go outside and have a vape. You could still do every rep of every set, but each rep isn’t as effective because your mind is somewhere else. The only solution I’ve found to that problem is to remove bad habits entirely.
Removing bad habits takes time because they weren’t developed overnight. You probably tapered onto the bad habit, so you also have to taper off. Take social media, for example. Instead of going from four hours a day to none, go from four hours down to three, then two, and then one. Also, I know it’s tempting to work on multiple bad habits at once, but try to work on one at a time so your plate doesn’t feel too full. And with each bad habit you remove, you’ll notice your focus improve.
4. Picture Your Mind as a Muscle
Think of your mind as a muscle—at least when it comes to focus. Like imagine keeping your bicep tensed all day, then you decide to go train arms. You won’t be able to lift anywhere near as much as you normally could. The same goes for your mind. If your mind is constantly tensed, it will be too tired to focus when it actually counts. The solution to that problem is the ability to turn off.
If you’re anything like me, turning off your mind is difficult. It takes work. The first step is to recognise that always being locked in feels productive, but it isn’t. It drains your energy. Then you have to practice turning off. You can do that by being more mindful. When you notice your mind starting to whir on whatever feels important at that time, clear your head and keep doing that. Eventually, turning off will become easier. So your mind doesn’t feel as tense throughout the day, and you’re able to focus when you need to.
5. Consume Long-Form Content Only
I think this one is fairly obvious. If you’re only consuming short-form content, you train your attention span to be short. Then, when you need to do something that requires you to focus for a longer period of time—which is anything worthwhile—you’ll struggle. To turn that around, only consume long-form content. Read books, listen to audiobooks, listen to podcasts, and watch movies. If you train your attention span to be longer in your leisure time, it will carry over into your work.
Conclusion
Focus requires practice. That has to happen both outside and inside the thing you want to focus on. Because only trying to focus when you actually need to is like a sports team not training and then going into a real game. You’re not going to perform well.
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