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(clock ticking)
It all sounds so simple.
Sit down and do the work.
But it isn't, is it?
Ever since you merged your workspace with your living space,
ever since the days begin to bleed into one another
in an undifferentiated cycle of light and dark,
and ever since your social interactions moved
to small, fake islands, you haven't been able to focus.
Shia's impassioned calls to action fail to stir you.
And you're starting to wonder if you'll ever be able
to concentrate or get anything worthwhile done ever again.
This is really dramatic, isn't it?
Okay, so I've heard this a lot lately.
It is way harder to stay focused
when you're working at home versus your office
or a coffee shop or wherever it is that you normally work.
The lack of separation between your work
and your personal life,
not to mention lots of additional distractions
floating around, means that your home is kind of like
the final boss of difficult workspaces.
Well, no, that would probably be
a Chuck E. Cheese, actually.
But still, today, I want to talk about how
you can actually stay focused on your work,
not to mention get started on it in the first place,
when you're working from home.
And first, we need to talk about intentionality.
Intentionally, the most useful thing you can do
when you sit down to work
is to set a strong intention first.
If you're anything like me,
I'm sure you can think back to a time when you sat down,
and instead of working intentionally,
you found yourself bouncing between mostly useless
busywork tasks, things like answering your email
or checking your credit score.
How is this even possible?
These tasks are easy,
and they give you an immediate feeling of accomplishment.
So they're tempting to work on.
But they also cause you to procrastinate on the work
that you really should be doing,
work that's truly meaningful to you.
So really, they often end up being a net negative.
And setting a strong intention before you work
helps you to avoid them,
at least until the real work is done.
Now, one useful way of setting intentions
is to follow the Rule of Three.
This is a concept from Chris Bailey's book
"The Productivity Project," and it's really simple.
When you're writing out your daily plan,
choose no more than three meaningful tasks
that you intend to get done.
And if you write your daily list on a white board like I do,
then you might wanna tweak how you use it
by writing these three intentions at the top
and listing any smaller tasks below them
in a de-prioritized way.
Don't worry about those until you get the main intentions
taken care of.
Then when it's time to sit down for a session
of focused work, look at your list and choose
just one item to work on.
Really mentally commit to devoting this working session
only to that item.
And just like that, you now have a strong intention
that will help to guide you and keep you on task.
Or at least you would,
if you happen to be sitting in an empty room
in like a monastery with no phone or internet access
or anything else to distract you.
But since you're at home,
I would wager that your environment
is absolutely teeming with distractions.
And if your intentions are gonna be translated
into action, then these need to be dealt with.
There's just no getting around it.
And that has to deal with how your brain is wired.
The human brain has evolved
over millions of years to be a highly sensitive instrument,
ever attentive to the small changes
in a constantly shifting and often dangerous environment.
And while this has enabled the very survival
of our species, it has also made a lot of people very angry
and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
And that is, not least of which,
because it renders us easily distracted
when we're trying to do complex work,
even if we set a strong intention beforehand.
Because meaningful work is hard,
because it requires us to really tax
our higher brain functions,
we are naturally resistant to doing it.
And we'll take any excuse to fixate on something else.
Additionally, our brains also have what's called
a built-in novelty bias.
Even when we're not resisting difficult tasks,
we are drawn to new things,
kind of like flies to a light bulb.
An analogy can be found in an observation that I made
back when I was in middle school.
See, when I was a student,
I used to carry a pack of chewing gum in my pocket
for, you know, myself.
And any time that I would get a piece of gum out,
again, for myself, any one of my classmates
who saw the pack of gum come out of my pocket
would stop what they were doing
and instantly become a mooch.
- I will literally die if you do not give me
a piece of that right now.
- And saying the word no to any of these classmates
was like hitting them in the face with a brick.
The wounded looks in their eyes told me
that in denying them that stick of Big Red,
I had ripped apart their dreams,
torn their hopes to ribbons,
and extinguished every spark of happiness and joy
that had kept them pushing forward
in this cruel, cruel world thus far.
And yet, seconds before this exchange would happen,
not one of those classmates was thinking about chewing gum.
Hadn't even crossed their mind.
And this is how our brains work.
We have this novelty bias,
but of course a novel object
has to be brought to our attention for it to be engaged.
Out of sight, out of mind.
It's why marketers and advertisers talk so much
about the AIDA framework,
Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.
It's the order of operations that governs
most of the actions we take,
including the ones that lead us
to indulging in distractions.
Also, if you don't chew Big Red, then.
Fortunately, you can use this knowledge
of human psychology to your advantage.
If you know that being merely exposed
to a potential distraction is gonna put you aboard
the AIDA Express on a one-way journey
to wasting the rest of the day
and looking at more cat pictures than you probably need to,
then all you need to do is ensure
that you are not exposed in the first place.
So, Anna was gonna help me film a skit
for this part of the video.
Then, she fell victim to the worst distraction
in the entire house.
In other words, remove any potential distractions
before you start working.
Dealing with them ahead of time
is infinitely easier than trying to fight them
in the moment.
I swear, I'm just getting footage
to make this point more visual.
Six ours later...
Now, you're not always going to be able to do this.
Chris Bailey's book, "Hyper Focus"
breaks distractions down into four different categories
based on whether or not you have control over them
and whether you find them fun or annoying.
And those that you have no control over,
like loud colleagues, construction noises,
or calls from your mom,
are hard to plan for ahead of time.
The best you can do is to deal with them
while keeping your original intention in mind,
and then get back on track as quickly as possible.
But the distractions that you can control
can also be dealt with in advance.
And let's start with your phone,
because it's probably the worst offender.
Now, in the past, I have been a bit soft on phones.
"Put it on Do Not Disturb," I said.
Use features like Focus mode on Android
or Screen Time on iOS to simply limit the time
when you can access distracting apps.
But you know what,
I think it's time to get a little bit tougher.
If you don't need your phone for your work,
and let's face it, you probably don't,
then keep it out of arm's reach.
Personally, I've been setting my phone
to Do Not Disturb mode for most of the day
and also putting it on the printer
on the other side of my office so, again,
it's out of arm's reach.
I also have it set so my favorite contacts
can get through Do Not Disturb
so my phone does actually work as a phone.
But everyone else gets silenced,
along with all app notifications.
Your computer is also a huge potential distraction,
and that is mostly due to the fact
that it's connected to the internet.
And if that's a particular;y big problem for you,
then you might want to actually disconnect it
when you don't need it,
either by disabling your WiFi
or by actually unplugging the ethernet cable.
Barring that, there is one rule
that I highly recommend you follow.
Don't keep email or any instant messsaging apps
like Slack or Telegram or whatever, Microsoft Teams,
whatever it is, don't keep any of these open while you work.
These are constant sources of novelty,
so they are distracting by nature.
But they also come with the additional social pressure
you feel to respond to a message when it comes in.
Personally, I'm part of several different Slack groups.
And over the past few months,
I've gotten into the bad habit of keeping them open
while I was working.
And I realized that I would sometimes spend
entire workdays just chatting with people.
So now, I only check Slack and email
at specific times of the day,
and I respond to everything in batches.
To remove other computer-based distractions,
you can look into getting a distraction blocker,
which would block any websites or apps
that you put onto a block list.
I use one called Freedom, which can be set up to block sites
during prescheduled windows of time
throughout the day or enabled for timed work sessions.
Now, I'm not gonna spend a ton of extra time
talking about apps here.
But if you're looking for other ones
that can help you focus,
I've recently published a page on my website
called The Focus Toolkit which recommends several more,
and I'll have that linked in the description down below.
Lastly, since you're at home,
ask yourself if there are any other potential sources
of distraction that are particular pain points for you
that you should address.
Like maybe your game consoles are a temptation.
Well, if that's the case,
put the power cord in another room
until you're done with your work.
Make it inconvenient to access them
so you don't do it impulsively.
I'd also recommend keeping a distraction journal nearby.
And whenever something pulls you away from your work,
make a note of what it was and why it pulls you away
so you can figure out how to eliminate it in advance
the next time you sit down.
Now, once you've taken care of all those distractions,
the last thing you need to figure out how to do
is to get rid of the resistance you feel towards starting.
And this is serious.
Mental resistance towards difficult tasks is a big issue.
For just one example, there was once a study done
on people who felt high levels of anxiety
towards doing math.
And the study found that the mere anticipation
of having to do math caused increased brain activity
in some specific regions of the brain,
namely those that deal with threat detection
and even physical pain.
And what this illustrates is that certain parts
of our brain view difficult, mentally taxing tasks
in the same way they would view
touching a hot stove burner.
Fortunately, this aversion you feel
towards difficult tasks really only affects you
at the beginning.
Once you get into it, you build up momentum
that overcomes that resistance.
So all you need to do is to reduce your resistance
enough to get started.
And you do this by making the task feel less daunting.
Now, the first method for doing that
is to break down your tasks.
In other words, narrow the scope of your intention.
Earlier on in the video,
we talked about setting an intention
by choosing one of the three meaningful tasks
on your daily plan.
But if those tasks feel too big,
then simply break one down into smaller chunks.
That way, you can pick one of those chunks
and set it as your intention instead.
For example, when I sit down to write,
I never set my intention as write a video script.
Instead, I create multiple subheadings based on an outline,
and then I sit down with the intention
of writing a draft of just a single section.
Now, if I put forward into more sections
during that writing session, great.
But that is not my intention when I'm starting out.
Secondly, commit to working
only for a specific period of time,
and make it low enough that you no longer feel resistance.
So if 30 minutes feels like too much, then go for 15.
Now, whatever time you decide to go with,
set it on a timer,
or at least put it on a timer app.
Using one of these tools creates a little bit
of external pressure so there's one less thing
you have to rely on your willpower,
your internal self-control to handle.
So now you have all the tools and and the concepts
that you should need to sit down
and do some focused work.
But if you'd like to see an example,
here's exactly how I do it.
First, I will look at my white board,
which now lists my top three intentions
separately from other smaller tasks.
And if each of these is too big for a single work session,
I will choose part of one
and set my intention based on that.
Next, I choose how long I'm going to work.
And lately, that has been about 35 minutes per session,
at least for starters,
which means the very next thing I do
is set a 35-minute block timer on Freedom
and choose a block list that supports the task.
For writing and video, or for doing research,
I use my Morning block list,
which blocks Slack, email, all social media,
YouTube, and any busywork sites like Google Analytics,
which are a pretty big distraction for me, personally.
Then I'll chose something to listen to,
which lately has been either the focus sessions
on brain.fm or my Sunday Study playlist on Spotify,
which I'll link to down below.
And finally, I set an actual timer
in a little Mac toolbar app called Be Focused.
This takes all of 30 seconds.
And in that time, I've done everything we've mentioned here.
I've set an intention,
I've removed all distractions ahead of time,
and I've eliminated my brain's aversion to starting
by choosing a manageable time for my timer.
And I've found that doing these few things
enables me to stay focused for much longer
and helps me be a lot more productive.
And it makes sense, right?
Once you've taken the big problem
that seems so difficult to solve,
the problem of not being able to focus,
and broken it down,
you're left with just a few smaller,
easier to solve problems.
And these quick actions neatly take care of each one.
And it's worth remembering that all problems are like this.
Once you've broken them down into smaller parts,
you start to see little angles of attack that you can take
for applying useful solutions.
And doing this is a skill
that you can get better at through practice.
And one great resource for getting that practice
is Brilliant.
The math, science, and computer science courses
on Brilliant are all built to engage
your problem solving abilities,
as they quickly throw you into challenges
that force you to really
interact with the concepts you're learning.
And not only does learning with Brilliant
help you to become a better problem solver,
since you're spending the majority of your time
actively solving problems,
but it can also help you to get ahead
and understand the world more thoroughly.
Brilliant's library features more than 60 in-depth courses
with a full math suite that covers everything
from basic number theory to high-level probability,
along with science and computer science courses.
And that includes a new course on neural networks,
which are a fundamental part of artificial intelligence.
So to start learning and building
your problem solving skills today,
head on over to brilliant.org/thomasfrank
and sign up.
Link will be in the description down below.
And if you're one of the first 200 people to do that,
you're even going to get 20% off
your annual premium subscription.
So that is it.
Thank you so much for watching.
And if you like this video,
definitely hit that Like button
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And you may also want to go follow me over on Instagram,
because today, I've actually put up a little bonus video
with an additional tip for dealing with a particular type
of distraction that I know a few of you deal with
on a regular basis.
So check that out.
Link will be in the description down below.
Otherwise, you can subscribe right there
or check out one more video on this channel
right over here, probably.
I think this is where the button's going to be.
Yeah, smash your face into it
and watch some more videos, dude.
Otherwise, go do whatever you want,
because as always, I'm not your dad.