Staying Focused
We live in a busy world. We have access to endless amounts of data and they are fighting for a small piece of our attention. If you are like me and spend a decent amount of time online, it's easy to find yourself distracted by constant interruptions. Not only interruptions, but I am discovering that I am always wanting to do more things. These things might be hobbies, building a new web app, discovering something to do in the area, or just spending time with my wife.I find myself looking back at a day, wondering where the heck did the time go? If I am honest with myself, I find that this time creep comes in when I am unfocused during my day. So how do we become more focused? How do we build habits that keep us focused on our jobs, our families, and our activities?
Focus = Productivity
Building focus into our work day provides us with the ability to get more things done. I have started to break my days into chunks of time where the focus is 100% on the tasks I need to get done. I setup time blocks in about 1 hour chunks, which have specific goals. It could be getting a website uploaded to the server, or having the homepage design completed.
Focus also means blocking out all those distracting things I do throughout the day. Checking Facebook, checking Twitter, opening email, re-checking Twitter. Nothing kills focus more than social media.
I also un-installed Growl notifications. I realized that Growl was killing my working mode. And like I really need to know that Dropbox downloaded another file.
So what tools do you use to stay focused?