It can be hard to succeed in any task without the ability to focus. There are so many distractions within easy reach these days it is sometimes difficult to hold yourself back and stay away from scrolling through social media on your iPhone or watching the latest Netflix show on Apple TV.
With so many opportunities to distract yourself in the form of an iPhone, iPad, Mac, Television and anything else with a screen, it isn’t easy to train your brain to ignore all these tempting conveniences and stay focused on your tasks. Hopefully, this list of useful hacks will help you boost your concentration and productivity, helping you get your jobs done on time.
Limit Your Distractions
People can lose a lot of their most productive hours to pointless distractions like social media apps or surfing news sites for the latest stories, especially in these times when we are always looking for fresh updates.
On your Mac you can Stay focused using BlockSite, a Chrome browser extension that anyone can use to help them limit the amount of time they spend online. Rather than blocking access altogether, this extension lets users select the amount of time they can spend in a day, or any period of time, on each site. This means you can still check your Facebook, but you won’t get caught in an endless scroll through posts and lose an hour or two of productive work time to social media.
It works with any site, so you can cut down on the time you spend being distracted by the web and stay focused on your tasks and projects.
Try Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is simple and has become very popular in the fitness industry in the last few years.
The premise is easy to follow in theory. You fast for 16 hours a day and consume all your food in the remaining 8 hours. If you sleep for 8 hours a day, you’re already halfway there. By fasting until you are halfway through your day your energy isn’t being spent digesting food or processing carbs. Instead, you have more capacity for complex tasks.
Skip breakfast and wait until around lunchtime to eat. You will have a very productive morning!
You can also take advantage of your iPhone to track calories.
Start Your Day with Some Exercise
A great way to get your brain focused and ready for work, and to improve your general sense of wellbeing, is to do some light to moderate exercise every morning.
This doesn’t mean dragging yourself to the gym as the sun comes up, but it does mean you should give yourself 20 minutes or so of cardio and anerobic exercise to get invigorated for the day ahead. This can often help you to clear your mind and give you some time to think about the day ahead while you exercise.
You can even take part in a regular early morning activity to start your day with some exercise, like running, swimming, cycling, or even just walking. Here are the activities you can track with your Apple Watch!
Write Lists and Set Goals
This may seem like an obvious step to take, but many people try to keep on top of all their tasks without using simple lists to help control their workflow and work to deadlines.
A great way to stay focused is to write down the tasks you want to complete the next day, or afternoon, or hour, and work to that list. This not only helps you to keep track of what you have done and what you still need to do, but it can also help you to plan your work and see your progress.
If you can see how much you have accomplished over an hour or a day, this can be a source of motivation that helps you stay focused on the rest of your goals and maintain your level of productivity. There are many apps that let you set goals and track them.
With all the distractions that are within easy reach, it can be hard to control temptation and stay focused on your work. By using just a few of our hacks you should be able to stay focused and keep clear of these time-wasting temptations and get more done.
