Yeah, I can't I I can't look at the needles
How many times you got a double snake people I?
Should jump out that window without a parachute
This is my hair's
My hair's okay. I got you know my thirties, and I still have it. I'm happy. Hey. What's up?
It's Derek Halpern, and you're watching planet Derek today. I got a lot of stuff planned and today. I want to focus on
How I stay focused by now, you know I'm running a software company
I'm helping with a
Health product line that we're launching and I also run this daily vlog and I also have an online course business
I'm doing a lot and even though I have a team of people to help me
I've got four major
Projects that I'm working on and let me tell you if you want to work on more one thing you need focus we want to
work on two things you need intense focus
But if you want to focus on four big projects you really need to make sure you are
Optimizing your time now later in this video. I actually have a guy coming through he's gonna. Give me an IV drip
You're gonna learn about that later too, but for right now. I want to talk about focus I always tell people that I'm
99% useless, but that 1% when I'm not I'm dangerous and
one of the ways, I'm most dangerous is when I
Set my mind to accomplishing something if I want something verify say I want a hundred thousand new email subscribers
There's literally nothing
Standing between me and getting that because it's like I get like tunnel vision. It's like
I'm just completely focused and I go for it
And I kind of want to share some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that I do to get there, but first if you're new here
I'm Derek Halpern you're watching planet Derek
And we like to talk about different self-help and entrepreneurial advice to help you start and grow your online business
So do me a favor like this video subscribe to my channel and of course
Hit that notification bell
Let's jump right in I've got five simple steps for you to get focused but first
I want to share something that's driving me crazy. It's known as the
Dopamine distraction loop you've probably heard about this especially right now because it's big news
For Facebook and for all these different tech companies
Who've engineered their websites to SAP your time from you? They've created all these different alerts and notifications
To try and keep you on their website longer
preventing you from focusing and you're not familiar with this, but dopamine is a chemical in the brain and
Dopamine is responsible for our seeking behavior
You know when we're going to look for stuff, and we find it brain releases a little dopamine hit
It's kind of how it works. So it's almost like when you go on facebook.com, and you see a little notification up
Dopamine hit you check it dopamine hit you go read it you put an update up
You keep refreshing it every time you refresh, and you get a new little red mark dopamine hit. This is how?
technology makes you addicted to their products and
This distraction loop this this dopamine seeking behavior is the number one reason why people don't have focus I
Suffer from this as well especially since I'm running an online business. I've got a youtube channel. I gotta check my comments
I run a Facebook page now to check my likes run an Instagram page gotta check my messages what am I gonna do?
it's like you need to check it because you don't want to miss out on anything and
The problem is this repeated seeking behavior for updates is
Impacting our performance in a big way. It's making us less productive. It's making us not work on our real work
It makes us feel like we're busy doing the right things when in reality
We're doing nothing so this is the problem that exists for us
And it's time for us to take back control of our brain so that we can focus on the things
that
truly matter
So now I want to share with you my personal
focus routine and
step one is as simple as this you have to get your priorities straight and
The best way to get your priorities straight is to eliminate all of your priorities and focus on one of them
So really it's you want to get your priority straight
You want to make sure?
You know what you need to work on right now and what you need to finish and finish is the key word
Once you have one priority you need to take that through to completion
I'm doing this daily vlog right now and let me tell you it's taxing
But it's a priority and I make sure to get it done every single day
it's a way for me to work on my focus muscle for content creation and
Sometimes you have to do something crazy like a daily vlog just to keep the momentum rolling
Many people believe they can multitask
but
Multitasking is a myth
You can only do one thing at a time
Especially if you want to do it. Well, which is why you have to get your
Priority straight now the way you can do it. Just write a list of them pick the top one finish it
Simple as that this leads me to the second thing that I like to do and it's tough especially now
One of my favorite times in my life is a time when I broke my iphone
I know why would I want to break my phone?
But I loved it because I had broke my iPhone two weeks before the new iPhone was coming out
And I'm sitting here like I want to buy a new iPhone right now
I've you know the new ones coming out in two weeks. Why would I waste my money?
So I went two weeks without a phone and let me tell you it was glorious
it's amazing I
Didn't have any
Distractions and let me tell you what a productive a couple of weeks
And that's why the second part of my focus routine is to shut off
Distractions you got to shut them off if you got a phone
Put that thing in the airplane mode if you can't control your browsing habits
There are plugins that prevent you from going to Facebook during certain hours of the day you're gonna make sure you stay focused on
What you're doing turn off notifications? Don't check your email. Don't look at Instagram. It feels good
But just try it for an hour, and you'll see you'll get a lot more done the third thing
I like to do and this gives that a little tricky or weird
But I like to get into the zone and the way I like to do it
I like to be in my home office or a coffee shop
with silence now
Silence is not always possible
So I actually substitute silence sometimes
with a song
That I listen to on repeat now the reason why this works for me is because he was a lot of research that suggests that
Silence is important for a sustained attention
I think I read a study based out of Stanford where they talked about silence being important for attention
But the problem with silence for me is it's not always possible in New York City, and there's always random sounds that distract me
So I create my own version of silence by listening to a song on repeat
Because after you hear the same song three or four times in a row
It's almost like you don't even hear it anymore all that song is doing is just playing on repeat in my head
Drowning out all the other noise around me, and it makes it easy for me to stay focused on the task at hand
So if you haven't started doing it or maybe you do it yourself always think about
Listening to a song on repeat as a way to stay focused on what you're working on now step four
It's gonna be a little repetitive
But you gotta rinse and repeat you've got to keep doing steps one through three
Over and over and over again you want to do it for every task you work on
Personally there's something known as the Pomodoro Technique where you set a timer and you work uninterrupted?
On that time or 30 minutes 20 minutes or whatever the timing is I actually use 33 minutes
When I'm trying to focus on copy specifically and every time I've ever written a sales page
I've used this 33 minute timer because I I read a book
Actually, it wasn't a book
It was um
It was a video interview with the guy named Eugene Schwartz you might have heard me talk about Eugene Schwartz because he's like the father
Of great copywriting and almost every business owner that I know that creates copy online
Really references Eugene Schwartz as like you know the father here well
He did an interview where you talked about how he writes sales copy and he uses a 33 minute timer
I tend to use a 33 minute timer as well
And it's worked for me when I'm writing my sales copy and that's why rinsing and repeating is so important
You just keep going in 30 minutes sprints a lot of people think like I got eight hours of work to do
What do I do?
It's like all right eight hours tough. You can't maintain focus for eight hours so for me
I'll try to work on something for about a half hour
Go take a break half hour take a break half hour go get coffee come back half hour
That's kind of how I get my work done. Now. This isn't always possible if you're in
More deep work
Like if you're a programmer working on a tough problem, but you have to pick the time limit. That's right for you and
That's going to be your new habit now as I said, I got a guy coming over and just a minute
We're gonna be getting an IV in my arm. It's gonna be interesting supposedly. It's gonna help with maintaining focus energy
It's gonna be an interesting thing to share but moving on the final step for me is
Step 5 take a break. I know I just said that before but it's so important to work breaks
into your daily working routine
So I read a book whose hold up
I think it's called the power of full engagement by Tony Schwartz and they call this
She basically says that if you want to do your best work you have to do state changes
So if it's more like if you want to work two hours great work two hours, then go get lunch
Then go work two hours somewhere else then go for a walk, then work two hours somewhere else
But the goal is to always change your state because every time you change your state it
Resets your attention span and makes it feel like you're starting from scratch
so I I use a lot of state changes in my daily life and
When I use them especially when it's nicer outside. I like to go out for a walk
I go get coffee a lot which is kind of how I got this coffee addiction
But the these breaks are important for attention resets
And it helps you do your best work and that about wraps
it up the guy for the Ivy's gonna be here in a minute so hold on one second and let me take you behind the
Scenes of what's gonna go down guess. I'm vitamin C. I got some calcium so magnesium
so b-complex and b12
paradox in some soda bread carbs ink and some multi kick
I'm feeling better already. I actually feel like I don't have to sleep anymore look. I don't know what this stuff actually works
I just know I feel better right now to be able to see well
But I feel like a new man
Alright that wraps up today. Just got that IV I feel great right now
So do me a favor we got a lot of stuff coming this week
I'm going to North Carolina to focus on our true Vani shoot
so we'd be talking about what's gonna happen behind the scenes and
As you know we're doing this every single day so tune in tomorrow, and I'll talk to you soon