When at work, it’s important that you’re able to focus on and complete important tasks at hand not only for the overall objective but also for yourself. Not getting work done will generally lead to an unhappy boss, but the anxiety and worry this causes could spill over into your life and activities outside of the workplace.
Knowing that you haven’t got work done may stop you from enjoying your usual weekend activities like that night out with friends. Or it could disturb activities that are important to you, like your health and fitness routine.
Maximising your focus in the workplace will enable you to experience a great work/life balance so that there's no issues from work spill over into your personal life. Which this would potentially affect your relationships with those you love.
Here Are 3 Things You Can Do Today To Maximise Your Focus At Work:
1. Remove Distractions
We’re all guilty - phone out on the desk, trying to get that task done. It pings so we are curious to see what is happening. We pick it up and enter the digital world and BOOM there’s our focus and concentration gone. It happens a few times and before you know it the day is nearly up and we haven’t completed anything worthwhile yet.
Although smartphones are a big part of our lives, they are a huge hindrance to our focus and concentration. A study from as far back as 2005 from King’s College London concluded that the distraction of constant emails, text messages and phone calls, such as we see in the modern day, posed a greater threat to IQ levels and focus than taking cannabis was shown to present.
It may be useful to switch your phone to “Do Not Disturb”, silent mode or to completely remove it from the area you are working at if you feel necessary. Alternatively, if your distractions often come from emails you could close down your email tab when completing a task and only review your inbox once the task is completed.
2. Plan Your Day
Although it may sound cliché, formulating a plan for what you will do throughout your day at work will skyrocket your levels of focus. A big part of the reason people struggle with focus and don’t complete anything worthwhile throughout their day is due to a lack of direction.
Simply creating a checklist containing 3-4 tasks that need to be completed to keep things moving forward will give you a sense of direction and will allow you to remove large parts of your procrastination and time wasting you may have become accustomed to.
Creating your list the night before work or at the end of each day means you can arrive at work and immediately begin to get things done. If you’re that good, you may even then be able to get ahead of the game and move on to other tasks which weren’t originally on your list!
3. Give Yourself Incentives
Give yourself incentives to complete tasks. For example, when you arrive at work you could say to yourself that if you get those first two tasks completed within an hour then you’re allowed to check social media for five minutes. This can act as a direct motivator for you to complete the tasks as you know you will be getting something which you enjoy at the end of it.
A study showed that tangible workplace incentives increased employee performance by an average of 22%
You could also take up the incentive idea with your line manager so that other employees can participate and your workplace as a whole can become more focussed and productive. Ideas for types of employee incentives include:
- End of month bonus for chosen employee
- Health and wellness activities
- Choice of projects to work on
- Fun gifts
- Additional time off
Bottom Line
Putting in systems to allow us to become more productive will not only do a great deal to improve our performances in the workplace. But also our general happiness outside of the workplace as well as inside the workplace will improve.
Gaining more recognition in the workplace due to our levels of focus and ability to get things done means we will feel more driven to do well meaning that there will be no more worry about the goings on at work when we’re outside of the workplace.
All in all, becoming more focused in the workplace will have great benefits on our work life as well as our personal lives!
These are just 3 tips to help you stay focus a work but there are other ways that can also increase focus at work such as incorporating mindfulness and building better habits. Find out more here!
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