Your level of productivity and focus is like a muscle—it can be trained and improved if you make a habit out of it.
At least… that’s the hypothesis I’m testing these days.
Some context:
Recently I hit the 1-year mark of my fitness journey. 1 year since I took my diet more seriously. 1 year since I bought that single dumbbell that’s managing to give me a decent full body (well… most-of-body) workout each time.
But here’s my problem.
My body is looking much better. Yay.
But my mind, and my focus, aren’t in a great place right now.
I’m not as productive as I used to be!
What to do about it? Well…
…if I managed to train the strength of my body, let’s see if I can train the focus of my mind, too.
My hypothesis: Focus can be learned. It can be trained over time.
You can put in ‘focus reps’ just like you put in reps at the gym.
What’s the equivalent of a ‘rep’ for training your focus muscle?
The method I’m experimenting with currently is using a timer.
Here’s how it works:
Get a timer that can do alternating rounds in custom intervals—think Pomodoro but you can set how many minutes of work and rest you get, so it’s not necessarily 25 minutes work, 5 minutes rest.
I’ve been using this free tool for this for now before I find something better: https://www.intervaltimer.com/create/round-timer
Once you’ve got your timer, set up however many minutes of work vs. minutes of rest you want.
As mentioned, my focus has been bad. So I started really low. Sticking to the ‘make it so easy you can’t fail’ principle for now.
So let’s say… 5 minutes focused, 2 minutes rest (my ‘rest’ usually consists of watching some inconsequential stuff on YouTube).
I did mean it when I say I started low.
Just like with lifting, the plan is to keep adding ‘weight’ over time. Start at 5/2, then 6/2, then 7/2, then 8/2… You get the idea.
For you, maybe something like 16/4 would be more your speed. Or 30/10, even.
But the key is to stay consistent, keep the timer running (while still taking longer breaks as needed), and keep improving little by little.
Full disclosure: this experiment is something I just started doing. So I’ll report back on how it goes.
But hey, if this makes some sense to you, maybe you want to join the experiment as well. And share how it goes, if you’d like! In an email reply, perhaps. Or DM me on LinkedIn.
If you read this far, chances are you care about productivity. Want to improve the productivity of your team—and finally build the habit of consistently tracking time across your whole team as well? Grab a productivity consultation / therapy call with us. We’ll show you how you can do more with the resources you already have.
