Strategies for Sustained Focus and Avoiding Procrastination
Preventing Goal Habituation
What's the best way to work or study for long periods of time without losing focus? Way back in 2010, a group of researchers asked the same question. They hypothesized that you can actually maintain focus or vigilance as they called it by taking short periodic breaks throughout your workday. During those breaks, it's important that you take a complete mental detour. In other words, you shift your attention toward something different from what you've been working on.
This change in focus prevents a decline in focus and performance called goal habituation. Goal habituation is when working for an extended period causes your brain to view your work just like a habit. If something becomes habitual, your brain attributes fewer resources to it. The process starts to feel automatic, which essentially ruins your concentration. Oftentimes, people think losing focus means you've run out of attention, but attention doesn't function like the gas in your car or the charge of a battery. You can't run out of it. Losing focus just means that your attention is drifting towards something else.
So, instead of giving a hundred percent of your attention to your work, it may be split 50-50 between work and some event that you're excited to go to. When your work feels like a habit, this split gets more and more distracting. But how does your work become a habit in the first place? Think about what happens when you buy a new piece of furniture. Let's say you get a new couch for your living room. Now at first, it's going to feel weird every time you walk into the room and see that new couch, right? It's a novel stimulus, so your brain's naturally excited by it. But over time, your brain will care less and less until that couch eventually blends into the background.
Researchers discovered that this also happens when you work for long periods of time. At first, the work seems new and stimulating, but your brain will get used to it. It will lose that special meaning it had in the beginning, so your attention just starts to shift unless you can do something to interrupt the process. That's where these brief diversions come into play. They keep your brain from making a habit out of your work. In that way, when your break ends, your work will feel like a brand new and exciting stimulus again. Now, it won't feel as exciting as it did the very first time, but researchers still predicted that these breaks will significantly slow down goal habituation.
And you know what? They were exactly right. In their 2010 study, two groups of people were given a memorization task to perform throughout the day. One group took zero breaks, while the other used these brief scheduled detours. As you might expect, the first group showed major declines in performance. In general, they were tired, they were bored, and they had trouble concentrating over time. But the second group, on the other hand, saw minimal differences in performance. Their focus and sharpness remained consistent throughout the entire task. Why? Because those short breaks prevented goal habituation from taking its toll.
Each break refreshed their concentration by giving their attention the chance to focus on something new. So the next time you've got hours and hours of work to do, don't knock it all out in one sitting. Use these short but substantial diversions to stay focused and perform at your best.
The Tomorrow List
An innovative strategy to avoid procrastination is to create something called a tomorrow list. Everyone's heard of a daily to-do list, right? Well, they're lists of assignments, commitments, and chores that you want to get done that day. The goal is to help you keep track of everything that you're supposed to be doing and that way, nothing slips through the cracks. Tomorrow lists work a little bit differently. Instead of writing down what you're going to do today, just write down everything you've been putting off until tomorrow.
In other words, focus on the goals that you've been hesitating to pursue. Focus on the opportunities that you've been ignoring. You know you want to do them. You've spent plenty of time thinking about them, but every time you're about to get started on one, you might say, "Actually, I'll just do that tomorrow." Just take all those things that you've been procrastinating over and stick them on your tomorrow list. No matter how big or small they are, it's important that you put them down on paper. Lay out every passion project that you've dreamt of starting. Write down every career that you hope to have.
Once you've got that done, it's time to take action. Pick just one item on your tomorrow list and add it to your to-do list. It doesn't really matter which one it is. It could be the tiniest, easiest thing on there. All that really matters is that you're crossing stuff off. You're finally addressing the things that you've been procrastinating over. It'll be challenging at first, but the longer you keep this up, the easier it will get to face your fears and accomplish your goals.
Scale Your Mountains
Have you ever heard the phrase, "You're making mountains out of molehills"? It means you're taking something small and blowing it out of proportion. This is extremely common among people who struggle with both focus and procrastination. When you put off the same responsibilities day after day, they get bigger and much scarier. The actual jobs seem more challenging than they did before. It feels like everything that you've been doing has been building up to this moment.
When you're dealing with that kind of pressure, anyone would have trouble getting started. But the truth is, your responsibilities haven't changed at all. Your mountains are still molehills, even if you can't see them that way. To keep yourself from procrastinating, just take a realistic look at the top three things that you've been avoiding. Do a little bit of research. Figure out what each one actually entails. A step-by-step guide, if that's something you find helpful.
Most of the time, you'll discover that this giant roadblock in your life is really nothing to be scared of. That realization makes all the difference when you're ready to tackle your goals. Not only does it raise your confidence, but it also gives you the courage to overcome any new obstacles that you might face in the future.
Imagining Accomplishments
When facing a new challenge, you might spend the majority of your time focusing on how terrible it's going to be, how much work is going to be involved, how many times you're going to fail. Your mind is so preoccupied by this negativity that you forget about the most rewarding part of the process. What will it feel like when you finally achieve your goals? How proud and confident will you be when you overcome those obstacles that you've been afraid of for so long?
If you want to avoid procrastination, try shifting your emotional attention. Instead of constantly thinking about the beginning or the middle, concentrate on the end results. Let that potential for positivity motivate you to push through the rough patches. It's almost like bribing your brain, the same way you'd offer ice cream to a little kid after going to the doctor. It's not the most sophisticated strategy in the world, but it doesn't have to be because it works, and it works well.
If you want to accomplish your goals, making progress is more important than how you motivate yourself, at least in the beginning stages. Self-discipline is something you have to build over time. It requires years of practice, but you'll never be able to learn self-discipline if you're constantly procrastinating. Use this simple strategy to get things started, accomplish something that you want to accomplish, then work on improving your self-discipline the next time around.
Built-In Confusion
We often expect ourselves to enter new territory with a plan of action, to have it all figured out before we even think about getting started. Without that all-inclusive plan, you might feel too unprepared or intimidated to tackle your goals, so you just wait around for that moment of clarity to come along and show you what to do. But this isn't any different than procrastination because that plan won't magically come to you in a dream. It's something that you have to work for and figure out for yourself.
In fact, the first step toward any goal is to be confused. You have to spend that initial chunk of time deciphering what you're supposed to be doing. Otherwise, you'll never get anywhere. So how does this information keep you from procrastinating? Let's say you want to start and finish a jigsaw puzzle. What's the first step? Before you ever put two pieces together, you have to open the box, turn all the pieces over, and get an idea of what you're supposed to be making.
My point is that if you're figuring out what you're doing, you've already started working toward your goals. You've gotten past that first roadblock. Executing your plan is really step two. If you're confused, it means you're on your way toward achieving your goals. Just remember that confusion doesn't disappear the moment you put your plan into action. You'll have to restructure and rethink your plan every step of the way. Everyone, even the most successful people, gets confused on a daily basis. No strategy is perfect, and no one has it all figured out. Just do your best, and progress will come.
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Conclusion
To enhance focus and reduce procrastination, employing strategies like taking scheduled breaks, using a tomorrow list, and imagining accomplishments can be highly effective. Embrace confusion as a part of the process and remember that every small step is progress towards achieving your goals.
References
| Reference | Details |
|---|---|
| Goal Habituation Study | 2010 Research on Attention and Focus |
| Procrastination Strategies | Innovative Techniques for Better Time Management |
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