Thursday, January 29, 2009

Focus

I get distracted very easily. My wife, Angie, is always wondering why it takes me so long to get out of the house in the morning. When she asks me this, I usually can't come up with a good answer. (And, of course I know the real answer is that I got sidetracked on something or other which really could have waited...) It does get frustrating for me (not just for her), because I know I could be more productive if I could somehow avoid getting distracted by little things.

This is especially relevant today since I'm working on reviews at work, which is an annual task that is really boring and tedious. It goes without saying that the more boring and tedious a thing is, the more readily I'm distracted. So of course this task requires more focus than usual to get it done. So today I thought I would allow myself another distraction. I Googled on "how to focus" to see what I would come up with.

Long story short, there is a wealth of information on the internet about how to stay focused. I scanned through a few links and then went back and read a couple I found most interesting. Some had more of a New-Age-meditate-to-clear-your-mind approach. Others were more down-to-earth, pragmatic, things you can do to help you focus. I'm a pragmatic person, so these are the articles I read through thoroughly.

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/09/how-to-focus-your-mind-on-project.html
http://www.davecheong.com/2006/08/14/18-ways-to-stay-focused-at-work/

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