Focus: Friend and Foe - How I Balance It Out
I have a problem with Focus, and I don't mean my eyes, though that is also currently a minor issue.
Here is the deal. I like to do things. When I REALLY get into it, I have absolute focus and few things can foist me out of it. This sounds good, doesn't it? Not really, and here is why. When I have been a roll and I focus on the one thing I am doing, I forsake everything else unless there is someone around to knock me out of it. This includes eating, drinking, standing and using the washroom. I have literally sat in front of a single computer all day without stopping for food, drink or nature's call. When I say all day, I typically mean 8 - 12 hours. So, now you see this isn't necessarily a good thing, right?
On the other side of the coin, I find when I don't really want to do a thing I cannot focus. I have to dull out my other senses just to start to focus on something I don't want to really do. This sounds normal. This is what a lot of people do. Years ago, I would walk away from the project, leaving it laying around knowing or hoping i would get back to it, then go off and do something totally unrelated. As a result, I end up with a fairly unbalanced production record. Some things I finish in a day and other things in two or three days even if they are relatively similar in size and scope.
Over time, I learned that if I wanted to get something I didn't find engrossing finished, I had to find a roundabout way to circumvent my lack of focus, so that I could get it finished and on to the next part. Initially, it was difficult to find something that kept me moving in the direction I wanted or needed. There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of stern talks from supervisors, managers and even bosses. I didn't want to be perceived as lazy or easily distracted, but in the end, it was always seen as such.
Luckily, I discovered there were ways to both step away from a mind-dulling project and keep moving forward. I began going off to related projects. Say, for instance, I needed to make a webpage that had several boxes that just would not line up and follow the rules that I swear were properly coded. In this instance, you need to either ask for help from someone, or step away momentarily before returning to troubleshooting. When I was working in an office, I dealt with this in several ways. I went to the restroom, down to the store for a quick brain enhancing snack or drink, asked a coworker to check my work, or, if all these options had been unavailable for various reasons, I could search the internet for a related issue and return with fresh eyes to see where the problem was.
Generally, when I searched the internet for a straight solution to my issue, I discovered other new ways to do the same thing, or I found other things I note for future implementation. In this way I was moving forward, while also distracting myself away from my forced focus for a while.
This worked. It still took time for the projects I was working on that I didn't have extreme focus on, but I was also learning new things that made future projects take less time in the end. However, there is a trap here. Sometimes when I did this, I ended up finding things I enjoyed a lot more than the project I was researching and my auto-focus kicked in. This left me in as bad a position as when I started. Yes, when I did return to the project, I certainly did have fresh eyes and was able to fix the issues, however, it had taken three times as long because of the other side of my focus problem.
I now had to figure out a way to circumvent the extreme focus and balance out the lack of focus, so that I could get work finished in a consistent manner. Luckily, I discovered a few methods.
There is a program called RescueTime that will track your computer usage. The Pro version has a lot of useful features and I was gung ho on getting some kind of baseline to battle against. I discovered that although I thought I spent a lot of time looking for answer, I was also spending time on Facebook and other social networks. This isn't always bad, but it was rather high. With the help of RescueTime, I began lessening my social activity, which did result in more production.
While RescueTime helped out a lot, there was still the issue of when I was being too focused. I tried various ways to ease this. I asked co-workers to make sure I talked to them at least at lunch time, I played music playlists that had a set time limit, and finally what ended up working most often was a timer. I didn't know anything about the 'Pomodoro Technique*' at the time. I just decided I needed a big distraction to kick me out of the extreme focus. I found an annoying alarm that would play through my headphones after a certain amount of time had passed. It had to be a large amount of time. I found if I hear an alarm too often, I can ignore it. Even the most annoying of sounds.
The alarm worked. I set it to make sure I used the washroom, ate Lunch, and just socialized properly. It also worked for when I was stuck and losing focus. When I did the internet searching, I had the timer set to low amount. 5 -10 minutes. When the alarm rang, I would return to the project and attempt to continue. If i was in the middle of something that I evaluated as need-to-know, I set a snooze.
Eventually, I started using it to challenge myself. Could I finish this part in 10 minutes? How about this part that usually takes 1 hour, could I finished it in 45 minutes? I didn't learn until many years after I started all this, that much of this was pretty much the Pomodoro Technique.
In the end, I found a way to change my focus and to practice ways to get things done that was efficient at the time. Now working on my own, I have had to learn more ways to do this, since I no longer have coworkers and I have so many more distracting things like Housework, cooking, and projects. Here's to continuously learning, changing and adapting!
Please comment and share! What have you done to help yourself focus? Have you tried any of these methods? Would you try any of these methods? What did or did not work for you?
================================
* Pomodoro Technique = A method in which a physical ticking kitchen timer, originally the shape of a tomato, or Pomodoro, is set for 10 minutes. The task which one sets for oneself must be finished in this time and a break must be taken. Excellent tool to work on efficient productivity, forcing the user to get more done in less time. Get better info about here: Pomodoro Technique
This entry was originally posted at http://niaskywalk.dreamwidth.org/127947.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Here is the deal. I like to do things. When I REALLY get into it, I have absolute focus and few things can foist me out of it. This sounds good, doesn't it? Not really, and here is why. When I have been a roll and I focus on the one thing I am doing, I forsake everything else unless there is someone around to knock me out of it. This includes eating, drinking, standing and using the washroom. I have literally sat in front of a single computer all day without stopping for food, drink or nature's call. When I say all day, I typically mean 8 - 12 hours. So, now you see this isn't necessarily a good thing, right?
On the other side of the coin, I find when I don't really want to do a thing I cannot focus. I have to dull out my other senses just to start to focus on something I don't want to really do. This sounds normal. This is what a lot of people do. Years ago, I would walk away from the project, leaving it laying around knowing or hoping i would get back to it, then go off and do something totally unrelated. As a result, I end up with a fairly unbalanced production record. Some things I finish in a day and other things in two or three days even if they are relatively similar in size and scope.
Over time, I learned that if I wanted to get something I didn't find engrossing finished, I had to find a roundabout way to circumvent my lack of focus, so that I could get it finished and on to the next part. Initially, it was difficult to find something that kept me moving in the direction I wanted or needed. There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of stern talks from supervisors, managers and even bosses. I didn't want to be perceived as lazy or easily distracted, but in the end, it was always seen as such.
Luckily, I discovered there were ways to both step away from a mind-dulling project and keep moving forward. I began going off to related projects. Say, for instance, I needed to make a webpage that had several boxes that just would not line up and follow the rules that I swear were properly coded. In this instance, you need to either ask for help from someone, or step away momentarily before returning to troubleshooting. When I was working in an office, I dealt with this in several ways. I went to the restroom, down to the store for a quick brain enhancing snack or drink, asked a coworker to check my work, or, if all these options had been unavailable for various reasons, I could search the internet for a related issue and return with fresh eyes to see where the problem was.
Generally, when I searched the internet for a straight solution to my issue, I discovered other new ways to do the same thing, or I found other things I note for future implementation. In this way I was moving forward, while also distracting myself away from my forced focus for a while.
This worked. It still took time for the projects I was working on that I didn't have extreme focus on, but I was also learning new things that made future projects take less time in the end. However, there is a trap here. Sometimes when I did this, I ended up finding things I enjoyed a lot more than the project I was researching and my auto-focus kicked in. This left me in as bad a position as when I started. Yes, when I did return to the project, I certainly did have fresh eyes and was able to fix the issues, however, it had taken three times as long because of the other side of my focus problem.
I now had to figure out a way to circumvent the extreme focus and balance out the lack of focus, so that I could get work finished in a consistent manner. Luckily, I discovered a few methods.
There is a program called RescueTime that will track your computer usage. The Pro version has a lot of useful features and I was gung ho on getting some kind of baseline to battle against. I discovered that although I thought I spent a lot of time looking for answer, I was also spending time on Facebook and other social networks. This isn't always bad, but it was rather high. With the help of RescueTime, I began lessening my social activity, which did result in more production.
While RescueTime helped out a lot, there was still the issue of when I was being too focused. I tried various ways to ease this. I asked co-workers to make sure I talked to them at least at lunch time, I played music playlists that had a set time limit, and finally what ended up working most often was a timer. I didn't know anything about the 'Pomodoro Technique*' at the time. I just decided I needed a big distraction to kick me out of the extreme focus. I found an annoying alarm that would play through my headphones after a certain amount of time had passed. It had to be a large amount of time. I found if I hear an alarm too often, I can ignore it. Even the most annoying of sounds.
The alarm worked. I set it to make sure I used the washroom, ate Lunch, and just socialized properly. It also worked for when I was stuck and losing focus. When I did the internet searching, I had the timer set to low amount. 5 -10 minutes. When the alarm rang, I would return to the project and attempt to continue. If i was in the middle of something that I evaluated as need-to-know, I set a snooze.
Eventually, I started using it to challenge myself. Could I finish this part in 10 minutes? How about this part that usually takes 1 hour, could I finished it in 45 minutes? I didn't learn until many years after I started all this, that much of this was pretty much the Pomodoro Technique.
In the end, I found a way to change my focus and to practice ways to get things done that was efficient at the time. Now working on my own, I have had to learn more ways to do this, since I no longer have coworkers and I have so many more distracting things like Housework, cooking, and projects. Here's to continuously learning, changing and adapting!
Please comment and share! What have you done to help yourself focus? Have you tried any of these methods? Would you try any of these methods? What did or did not work for you?
================================
* Pomodoro Technique = A method in which a physical ticking kitchen timer, originally the shape of a tomato, or Pomodoro, is set for 10 minutes. The task which one sets for oneself must be finished in this time and a break must be taken. Excellent tool to work on efficient productivity, forcing the user to get more done in less time. Get better info about here: Pomodoro Technique
This entry was originally posted at http://niaskywalk.dreamwidth.org/127947.html. Please comment there using OpenID.