How to Stay Focused at Work
How to Stay Focused at Work
When you’re struggling to focus at work, there can be many consequences. From falling behind deadlines, to feeling inadequate at your job, it can be detrimental to your work life.
But there are things you can do to get back on track and focus more on the task at hand. Here are our top tips on how to stay focused and productive at work:
Set a good routine
Limit distractions
Set goals
Create time blocks
Reduce meetings
Set a good routine
Particularly when you’re working from home, a routine can often be lost, and bad habits can start to form. Whether that be setting your alarm a little later, working from the sofa, or picking up a household chore to put off sitting down to work, without a morning commute we can become idle.
Instead, try to set a strong routine. Grab a coffee first thing, get to your desk when you would if you were in the office, check your emails to start your day, and write a list of your daily tasks. That way, at lunch, you can put that washing load on if you really need to.
Try working from a new place if the setup isn’t working for you currently – in the office, it might be a new spot nearer the window, or if you’re at home, try a different room. These changes can make a difference to how you feel about work and, as a result, increase your focus and productivity.
Limit distractions
It’s easy to get distracted on a doom-scroll for an hour or sit chatting with a friend in the office for longer than you expected. It happens to us all. But the best thing to do to increase your productivity and stay focused is to try to limit these distractions as best you can.
Try to keep personal conversations to lunchtime or after work and put meetings in with set times to go over tasks. As for scrolling, place your phone in another room, or set it somewhere where you can’t see it. Alternatively, there are apps that you can download that block social media for a few hours, so you can really settle into something and focus.
Set goals
If you’re wondering how to keep focused at work, think about goal setting. By setting goals, there’s something to aim for.
It seems like a simple tip, but often one that gets forgotten. Monthly goals might be something you’ve pre-determined with your manager but try setting weekly or daily goals as well. By setting smaller goals, it’s easier to set yourself up for success as the act of ticking off a goal can add satisfaction to your day. Keep in mind no goal is too small – do what you feel suits you.
Create time blocks
Setting time blocks is a great way to keep track of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. There are plenty of methods out there; take the Pomodoro method for example. Working in short, 25-minute intervals to achieve maximum efficiency. But with all of them, the end process is the same.
Not only will dedicating blocks of your day to specific work help boost your efficiency and focus, but by setting time aside to work and time aside for a break, you’ll feel a far greater sense of control over your day. Of course, if you get into the swing of things, you can ignore the break, but for the most part it works really well to keep you focused, with breaks acting as a reward for productive working.
If your calendar app allows for it, it might be useful to plot in different colors, to visually divide what your planned blocks are for the day.
Reduce meetings
Having meetings can sometimes be great to break up a long stretch of staring at your screen, but they can become a problem when they’re affecting your productivity. If you find you’re often jumping from a task to a meeting and back, you might find you lose your work “flow”. If that’s the case, try and schedule meetings together, or create shorter meetings to allow for periods of time in your diary where you can solely focus on working.
If controlling your meetings isn’t possible, try to use them as more of a screen break – that means no working on your laptop while in an online meeting – and really try to focus on the content. By doing this, you’ll feel less overwhelmed and more able to jump back into a workflow.