To be productive, you need to develop the ability to focus and concentrate.

Focus and concentration are two different things.

Focus can only occur when we say ‘yes’ to one option and ‘no’ to all other options.

Concentration is when we can eliminate distractions to do what we need to do.

Both focus and concentration can be difficult to master.

We live in a noisy world, and constant distractions can make focus difficult.

Elimination is a prerequisite for focus.

Three things you can do to increase focus and eliminate distractions.

1️⃣ Stop Multitasking

Multitasking forces your brain
to switch your focus back and forth
from one task to another.

Each time you interrupt one task and jump to another, you pay a mental price for it.

In psychological terms, this mental price is called the ‘switching cost.’

On average, it takes 15 minutes to resume the previous task when you stop to check emails, leave a comment on social media, or answer a phone call.

2️⃣ Make 2 Lists

A list of ‘To-Do’ things and a list of ‘Not To Do’ things.

Make sure you don’t do things you have listed in the ‘Not To Do’ list

What you don’t do will determine what you can do.

3️⃣ Measure Your Results

Focus often fades away, not knowing where we stand and how far we have come.

Our brain has a natural desire to know whether we are making progress toward our goals.

It is impossible to know that without measuring progress.

Unfortunately, we often avoid measuring because we are fearful of what the numbers will tell us about ourselves.

The trick is to realize that measuring is not a judgment about who you are, it’s just feedback on where you are.