FOCUS: Increase your productivity & tame distractions

1. Welcome to the class!: Attention is a limited resource and we currently live in a time where it has become easy to get distracted, and as a result, it has become difficult to focus. Amongst these distractions, our attention is constantly disturbed by external stimuli, social media notifications, e-mail alerts, interrupting colleagues and YouTube suggested videos. You know what I'm talking about? However, if we can reduce our distractions, prolonged or focus, and intentionally choose how much and what we give our attention to, we can lead a more conscious, focused and productive life. My name is Gabby over data and I'm a coach creator and a very curious human being. I've been studying psychology for the last ten years and the topics of focus and productivity have been of particular interest to me, especially nowadays since with all the devices and apps, it's become much more difficult to focus. Because of that, I wanted to share what I've learned and create a class on this particular subject. In this class, you will learn how to increase your attention and focus and to tame your distractions. You will learn how to clarify your tasks, spot distractions, and set focus and tensions. After learning these new tools that will help you focus your class project is going to include creating your own focus routine. Thank you for joining me and I can't wait to see you in class. 2. Attention 101: Thank you for joining me in this class. I am so excited that you're here. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of this class, I first wanted to define attention. Now, William James and American philosopher and psychologist, wrote one of the most widely referenced definitions of attention. He wrote that attention is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. In short, It's the ability to withdraw our attention from some things so that we may focus clear on others. And we select how we control our attention. Think of your attention as a spotlight, or better yet, a flashlight. You're holding a flashlight in your hand. And if you're in a completely dark room, you can only see a certain area that the flashlight covers. The whole room is filled with stuff, but you can only see a small section where your flashlight is directed. This can be compared to your attention. I mean, look around you right now, you have plenty of stimuli. Maybe your phone vibrated just as you were listening to me speak. There might be sounds outside the window or maybe there's movement in the background. If you're really focused on this class right now. And the words that I'm saying, everything else falls into the background. Pretty straightforward, right? However, in reality it's much more complex than that. Instead of shining a flashlight of attention on one thing at a time, for a significant amount of time, we keep moving it from spot to spot, from our laptop to her phone, from one app to another. Switching tabs and switching tasks. It gets overwhelming. We lose our attention and we get, sorry, distracted. We can't seem to hold our focus long enough to get into a flow state. A state in which we forget that time exists. And we become enveloped into what it is that we're doing. Eventually, if we're constantly distracted, we waste more time and get less done. Attention is our most precious and limited resource. We can waste it, or we can learn how to leverage it and put it to good use. You will now learn a couple of tools that if used correctly, will help you be and stay more focused. These tools will help you get more done in less time because you will use your attention efficiently. The next lesson you will learn about the four different types of tasks that you face in your day-to-day life. 3. Four types of tasks: Managing our attention is difficult. Instead of focusing on things that are important and productive, we prefer to focus our attention on things that are fun, urgent, and stimulating. Refreshing our Instagram feed, watching new YouTube videos, answering an email 15 s after it arrived in our inbox and chatting with co-workers as we tried to finish a project. Now, don't get me wrong. Fun and stimulating things have their own place. I love watching YouTube videos or movies. However, there's a time and place for this, because most of us live with our computers and phones at arms reach. It means that a lot of distractions or at arm's reach as well. This class is all about helping you improve your attention so you can get more productive and meaningful work done. Whether that's working on a project at work, starting a side business, or practicing a new hobbies such as playing the guitar. Chris Bailey, author and the creator of the four types of tasks exercise says, directing your attention towards the most important object of your choosing, and then sustaining that attention is the most consequential decision we'll, we'll make throughout the day. We are what we pay attention to. If there's one thing you take away from this whole class, let it be this. We are what we pay attention to. The four types of tasks that you will learn about now are split into different categories. Productive, unproductive, attractive, and unattractive. We place these four categories into a grid. Just like this. Tasks that are productive but unattractive will be called the necessary work. Necessarily work is the type of work that you would happily procrastinate on. Yet, it is productive in a sense that it will help you accomplish whatever bigger goal or project you have in mind, e.g. doing your taxes or working on your thesis. This work is important, but it takes quite a bit of effort for us to do it because it's boring or it's difficult. Tasks that are productive and attractive will be called purposeful work. This is the holy grail, the sweet spot of work. It's productive and it's enjoyable to do. These are the tasks that were most engaged with. The task does get us into a state flow where we lose all sense of time and tasks that are most meaningful for us. Mind you, very few tasks might fit into this box, e.g. for a teacher, purposeful work might be teaching a lecture the university, and having one-on-one feedback session with students. However, this might be only 20% of the teacher's job as the rest would include preparing for classes, grading papers, establishing the curriculum, and meeting with other staff members. Purposeful work is what we all strive for. We want to achieve things that are important for us and we want to enjoy doing it. Now, tasks that are unproductive and unattractive will be called unnecessary work. We tend to not put too much effort into these tasks as they don't bring us closer to any over important, productive goals. As Chris Bailey says, these tasks keep us busy, but this busy-ness is a form of active laziness and it doesn't help us accomplish anything. Finally, work that is unproductive yet attractive will be called distracting work. These tasks are stimulating, steal our time, and don't give much in return. We're talking about social media, news websites, YouTube videos, and deciding to reorganize your closet is a tight deadline is approaching. Mind you, these tasks are fun, but should be kept to a minimum if we want to get some serious work done. Before I ask you to fill out your chart, I will share mine with you for guidance and I will take me creating a new Skillshare class as the main goal that I want to achieve. And as I want to achieve this goal, there are many different tasks that fall into this grid. Now, for necessary work, it's going to be doing research, creating a class structure, and filming and editing the class for purposeful work. It's riding lessons and creating the workbook for the unnecessary work. It's taking hours to write and rewrite the lessons and also re-reading research. Now for the distracting work, it's checking social media, of course, and watching other classes and pretending it's research when in reality, I'm just procrastinating. Now that you know what each task means, it's time for you to fill out your own tasks sheet and gained some insight into what tasks you face in your day to day. Attached in the Resources tab, you will find a workbook. You can download it and print it. Turn to page three to fill out the four types of tasks table. If you don't have a printer, you can also take a piece of paper and a pen. And by using the grid as reference, you can draw a blank, one of your own. In the next class, we will talk about the four different types of distractions. 4. Four types of distractions: I loved the way Chris Bailey defines a distraction. Anything that can direct us away from our intentions. That's what a distraction is. If your intention is to relax and have fun watching a movie or petting your dog is not a distraction. However, if your intention is to finish a project, watching a movie or petting your dog every 15 min, in this case, will be a distraction. Just like we worked with the grids to look at your tasks. We're going to use the same approach and look at our distractions. We will divide our distractions and two rows of control, whether we have control over them or not. And into columns of feelings, whether we find the distractions fun or annoying. Let's first look at distractions that are out of our control. These out-of-control distractions can be annoying or they can be fun, e.g. and annoying distraction is if you're trying to get work done and you're upstairs, neighbor decides to do some construction work. At the same time. It's completely out of your control and it's not pleasant. On the other hand, if you sit down to finally do your taxes because you've decided to stop procrastinating and a friend of yours gives you a call because you haven't talked in awhile. That is a fun out-of-control. Distraction. Distractions that are out of our control can be annoying or fun. If they're annoying, we have to find a way to cope with them. In the example with the fixer upper neighbor, the solution would be to either get noise canceling headphones or perhaps get out of the house and go to the library. If the out-of-control distractions are fun, such as an unexpected call from a friend, then enjoy them. This now brings me to our second row. Distractions that we have control over. The annoying distractions that we can control include having a phone at arm's reach, leaving our notifications on, or attending unnecessary meetings. The fun distractions that we can control include surfing the Internet, scrolling social media, or getting distracted by our cute puppy. The thing about distractions is that more often than not, we are the ones that distract ourselves the most. It's not other people, not the neighbors upstairs, not the cute puppy, but us. We are our greatest interrupters. But not many of us want to admit it. If we want to deepen our focus and attention, we have to take care of our side of distractions, meaning the ones that we can control. We need to evaluate what distractions, whether annoying or FUN, are in our control so we can address them ahead of time if you need to do your taxes. And you know that the most distracting thing for you is your phone and social media apps. Then put your phone in the other room. If you're adorable puppy is begging for attention, bringing to another room or ask a friend to take him for a long walk. When you are faced with distractions that are annoying and out of your control, It's time to deal with them and get back on track. When you're faced with distractions that are fun and out of your control, then enjoy it. However, if you want to optimize your time and use your attention intentionally, it's time to look at the distractions you can control and deal with them ahead of time. In the same workbook attached, which you can find in the Resources tab. On page five, you will find the four types of distractions table. Take some time to fill it out and look at what distractions are most prominent in your life. The next lesson we will talk about the importance of setting intentions. 5. Focus intentions: Before you sit down and focus on the task at hand, whether it's writing a paper, doing your taxes or answering emails, it's important to set an intention. Attention without intention is wasted energy. Imagine that you get in the car, start your engine, and begin driving your present and focus as you're driving the car, which is wonderful. However, are you aware of where you're going? If you don't set an intention for your attention, not only will you be more likely to get distracted, but you also won't know where it is that you're trying to get to think of an intention, a setting a destination on your GPS. So instead of getting in the car and starting to drive, you first set a direction or a specific destination. This way you're not just mindlessly driving, but you're actually getting to a specific place. Let's take an example. If you want to write a book, you might schedule a two-hour focus window on Monday evening so you can start writing your book. If you sit down in front of your computer just with the idea in your mind of, I need to write my book. Not only will you be overwhelmed by such a big task, but you won't know where to start or what to prioritize. This is where intention setting comes in. If you have 2 h to work on your book, you can say to yourself, My intention for the next 2 h is to do research on topics x and y. Or you could say, I intend to write 1,000 words of the first chapter. You're setting a direction and a destination towards which you need to focus. Not only is this helpful because it helps break down big goals into smaller ones, but you can also let your mind relax. As you know the one or two things it only needs to focus on. Now you're being specific and realistic. After you set an intention on what you want to accomplish with your focus session, it's time to tame your distractions. This is where you can take a look at your distraction, stable and tame the distractions that are in your control. Put your phone into the other room, get some noise canceling headphones, and tell your roommates or partner to not disturb you for the next few hours. I also want to mention that setting intentions isn't just helpful for when you want to be productive, but also when you want to have fun and relax. Oftentimes, if I lay down on the couch to watch a movie or a TV show in the back of my mind, I'll have that critical voice that tells me you could be doing something so much better with your time right now, like finishing this project or doing some other productive tasks. This is where intention setting comes in as well. When it's time to focus and be productive, set an intention for what you want to accomplish. However, when you want to relax and have fun, set an intention for that as well. I intend to relax for the next 2 h and enjoy watching this movie. Remember, at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we use our time and focus with intention. This doesn't mean that we need to be productive 24-seven. It simply means that we are the ones who are in control of where our attention goes. The next lesson we will go over your class project. 6. Your class project: Now that you have completed your tasks and distractions tables and have learned about the importance of setting intentions. It's time for your class project, built your focus routine. Since distracting work is not what we aim for when we want to complete a project, we will be focusing on necessary and purposeful work the next time you want to focus and get something done. First look at your tasks table. In which category does your task fall into? Do we need to do your taxes? And therefore this work is necessary. Are you wanting to write a book? And therefore this work is purposeful. Makes sure to also consider the unnecessary work table as sometimes unnecessary tasks can be disguised as purposeful or necessary. When in reality, it's just busy work that doesn't bring us any closer to our more meaningful goals. Once you have determined which task it is that you want to complete, look at your distractions table. Which distractions are you most likely to encounter? Getting distracted by your phone or your partner? Think in advance of the distractions you may encounter that are in your control and take care of them ahead of time. Once you remove the distractions that are in your control, it's time to set an intention, be specific and realistic, and include a maximum of two items in your intention. E.g. I. Intend to write 1,000 words of the first chapter or in the next 2 h, I will answer all my e-mails and create a to-do list. On page seven of your workbook, you will find a template for your focus routine for the class project. Create your focus routine using this template and shared with me and the class into discussion forum. In the next video, I will share some of my final thoughts. 7. Final thoughts: I could tell you to move to a cabin in the woods, take certain cognitive ability enhancing supplements or go for a jog before you get work done that might help share. However, it's not a long-term solution. There are only so many supplements you can take and so many remote cabins you can visit. In order to stay focused. We are living in an incredibly distracting world and some app, TV show or device is screaming for our attention. It's our responsibility to strengthen our attention muscles and tame the distractions that surround us. I really hope that in this class you learned some valuable skills and knowledge that will help you direct your attention with intention. Also, remember that with time, your tasks and distractions will change. So make sure you keep your tables up-to-date. Thank you so much for taking this class. It's been a pleasure teaching you. And I really hope that these tools will serve you well and help you lead a more focused and intentional life. I'm looking forward to seeing your projects and discussing them with you. And of course, in case you have any questions, please reach out. Thank you once again for your time and I hope to see you in my next class.