Focus is THE most important skill to be able to accomplish regularly.
Focus gets you into the flow state. It boosts creativity. Overall, you are more satisfied with your work because you were able to give the writing session everything you had.
Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to protect and foster their focus when it comes to crunch time.
In his book Stolen Focus Johann Hari discusses the global epidemic of attention. He paints a harrowing image of a world plagued by the lowest amounts of concentration than ever before.
Here are the 3 biggest takeaways that I have implemented into my writing so I can quickly and consistently focus on my writing.
Takeaway 1. Remove Multitasking
The problem with multitasking is that people think it’s being able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
This is wrong!
Multitasking is actually shifting the attention of the brain multiple repeatedly. It comes from the idea that the brain can only truly pay attention to one thing at a time. The brain prefers doing this.
But this day and age has us trying to focus on that thing we need to write, as well as this email I need to send and that thing I’ve gotta do for my friend.
When the brain does this rapid switching of attention it gets exhausted, limiting your ability to concentrate on the next thing you switch to.
This is the way doomscrolling on social media results in a sort of brain fog. Have you ever had this? You’re scrolling for hours at nothing, particularly entertaining, and afterward, your brain just feels numb. This is exhaustion your brain has switched its focus so many times it’s basically given up.
Therefore, to help our focus we need to make sure we are only focused on our writing. This can be done by actively saying to yourself, “This is my time for writing, for the next 20 minutes I will focus on writing”.
Your focus is valuable, so use it wisely.
Don’t Multitask
Takeaway 2. Diet and Exercise are Crucial
Prior to reading Johann’s book, I hadn’t made the link between what I eat and how active I am with my ability to concentrate.
Stolen Focus really made it clear that your diet and daily exercise should be carefully considered when you are aiming to become focused on something.
Thus, you want to make sure you don’t have any sugary foods like lollies or other sugary treats before you do your writing for the day. This is because sugary foods give you an initial burst of energy but then you have this thing where you ‘hit the wall’ and become sluggish and your brain becomes foggy.
Which is exactly what we want to avoid.
Similarly, exercise is the best way to get the blood moving around your body as well as getting your body to release hormones such as endorphin which can increase well-being and thus you’re state of mind when you’re trying to focus.
I abuse these benefits as after my daily walk I go straight to my computer and get tapping away.
So, be aware of how much sugary foods you are eating and exercise before your writing time.
Takeaway 3. Practice Makes Perfect
Johann outlines in his book that focus is something that can be trained. Meaning that the more you successfully focus the more your ability to focus in the future.
Thus, we need to make focus a critical part of our daily routine if we want to reap its benefits long term.
You can do this by setting some time each day that is your designated focus time. This doesn’t necessarily have to be writing.
For example, I use New York Times daily Sudoku puzzles as a way to practice focus every day, because especially the hard puzzle requires a lot of concentration (at least for me).
This is great for my writing as the ability to focus is a transferrable skill, if you boost it up because of one habit you can luckily use the same built-up skill when you are writing.
Isn’t that awesome!?
Anyway, be sure to spend some time daily, focusing and you will strengthen the ‘muscle’ of focus.
Conclusion
Focus is such an important skill to have in your toolbox as a writer I hope at least one of my takeaways from Johann’s excellent book Stolen Focus was of some use to you.
The three takeaways I found were;
- Don’t Multitask
- Watch your diet and exercise
- Practice Practice Practice
If you liked this post then you might also like this one about how to avoid getting burnt out as a writer;
Thanks for reading. Happy Writing.
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