Tag Archive for: focus

The Power Of Downtime: Achieving Greater Results

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In a culture that celebrates 80-hour workweeks, sleepless nights and busy work – it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

Inspirational quotes and influencers expressing your need to work harder, celebrating the daily grind, only contribute to an increasing pressure to perform.

Now, working at home with less structure then before it’s become even easier to get caught in the rat race. With your office steps away from the bedroom, I’ve had clients recount answering emails from the time they get up to the time they go to bed.

Yet in my experience, the harder I worked the less I felt I was progressing. Because sometimes the most productive thing you can do is take a break.

But what about the power of downtime?

The Power Of Downtime

For the sake of this post, downtime is the time in-between tasks, meetings or mandates.

If you’re like most, you’ve tried to determine ways to be more productive at work.

Creating habits around how you organize your inbox, set meetings or prioritize your tasks.

But have you ever thought about being productive with your downtime?

Now it may sound counter-intuitive at first. Isn’t that the time I can finally rest and reset? Well yes, mostly… but you can learn how to use your downtime effectively.

Rather than feeling guilty about stepping away, using it to benefit your productivity and increase your performance.

For me a 5-minute walk outdoors at lunch made me feel more refreshed than ever! Where scrolling through 100 Instagram stories took less effort, but left me feeling more exhausted.

Mindless distractions serve to pass the time, but also deplete your energy.

Where productive downtime recharges and restores.

No matter how hard you try, unlike the Energizer Bunny, we can’t keep going and going and going…

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity hack, which has easily doubled my productivity and focus. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that revealed to me the power of downtime.

The brain can only function for about 90 minutes at a time before needing a break. The Pomodoro Technique promotes working in highly focused, short sprints with micro-breaks in between.

With the goal to maintain hyper-focus during “working time” and allow your mind to reset in-between sprints. Here is what it looks like:

Working time: 25 minutes

Distraction free focused on one single task (no multitasking) striving for a measurable objective (ex: finish report).

Rest: 3-5 minutes

No emails, social media, phone calls, meetings, etc. Safeguard this time to relax and let go of wherever your mind may be racing.

And repeat.

After 4-5 Pomodoro’s (25m sprints), you’ll begin to feel tired due to the hyper-focused nature of the activity and may need an extended break (15 minutes).

Over time you’ll learn what works best for you and can adjust the sprint and break time as you go.

As a high achiever, you’ll want to start with long sprints. I recommend going against your nature and beginning with short 25 minutes sprints before ramping up.

Where studies show that unplanned interruptions increase stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure, the power of downtime can alleviate these stressors.

The challenge is staying focused on one task for the entire 25 minutes, undisturbed.

Habit Challenge

As we’ve seen the power of downtime depends on how you spend it. By using your time wisely to re-energize will allow you to come back to work with a new perspective.

Here are 5 ways you can be productive with your downtime:

  1. Movement: Will increase energy levels and release endorphins in the body leading to a more positive mood. A 5-minute walk, stretching or a few push-ups can have a lasting impact.
  2. Nature: Click the link to discover how 40 seconds of connecting with nature can impact your productivity.
  3. Breathing: Meditating or focusing on your breath can help release stress and regain focus.
  4. Gratitude: Put pen to paper and write a few things you’re grateful for and it can help bring back perspective to what’s important to you.
  5. Know Your Why: I re-read my purpose and goals as a daily reminder of what I am working towards and helps when facing difficult challenges.

The power of downtime is necessary to improve productivity and focus. Trying to work straight through your day only leads to diminishing returns on your energy and focus.

Take the time to recharge and allow yourself time to reflect on what you may be stuck on. Begin by incorporating short breaks into your day by using the Pomodoro Technique.

A Habit for Mindless Distractions

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I’m in the middle of creating a PowerPoint for an upcoming presentation and my younger sister calls.

I pull myself away to answer the phone, but that only lasts momentarily, before I begin checking my emails. Splitting my attention, between our conversation and emails without even noticing.

I close my emails and pull myself back into the conversation. Although again only minutes later I find myself browsing the web!! Has this ever happened to you? Engaging in mindless distractions when you should be focused on one? Multitasking, while on the phone.

Scrolling through Instagram, during a webinar. Answering a text, while mid-conversation with someone. That last one really ticks me off. But it’s no better than checking my emails while on the phone with my sister. And it’s not that our conversation wasn’t interesting. But these days I’ve noticed myself dividing my focus between activities.

Why has it become so difficult to stay concentrated on one thing at a time?

Mindless Distractions

As great as it’s been growing up in the digital age, it does have its drawbacks. Technology has created expectations to respond at all times of the day and made it easy to let small things pass us by.

The era of sharing everything has connected the world like never before through Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. But living in a fast-paced online environment, we’re continually trying to catch up, because it keeps evolving.

The devices in our pockets have provided a network for relentless distraction and stimulation. Forming larger barriers to social interaction, than the connections they were created to make.

The exponential growth of technology has made us less social than more, no matter how many Facebook friends you might have.

These pressures have had adverse consequences on our health. With only so many big milestones to celebrate, what happens when you forget to relish the small wins?

Millennials, in particular, are suffering from depression and anxiety at a greater ratio than any other generation due to perfectionist pressures. Always striving to become better has made burnout and stress-related issues a norm.

When your automatic choices begin to be detrimental to your health and happiness, you can longer rely on them. Isolated and alone, it’s easier to resort to mindless distractions than look around and engage in a conversation with a stranger.

Developing a habit of spending unconscious time on mindless distractions has created a need for more conscious living.

Ah!! But what can we do?

In a connected society, we have to be intentional with the time we spend on distractions. Learning to become present with what we’re doing in the moment. Technology is not a bad thing when used properly. Avoiding splitting your attention by focusing on one thing.

For example,

Paying attention and contributing to the online meeting you’re in. Actively listening to the conversation you’re having – in person or on the phone. Working on one task at a time and completing it, before moving onto the next. Become self-aware when you engage in mindless distractions and look towards dedicating conscious time to what you’re doing.

Self-Awareness Strategies

Here are 4 techniques that you can implement to practice avoiding mindless distractions:

  1. Meditate: Learn to let your thoughts come and go rather than suffocate your mind. Begin with something as short as a couple minutes of deep breathing.
  2. Pomodoro Technique: Use this productivity hack to increase your focus on a task. Blocking outside distractions will raise your awareness and productivity drastically.
  3. Practice Gratitude: Place a journal or piece of paper next to your bed and write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day. Use it as a reminder to stop and enjoy the small joys in your day.
  4. High-Intensity Exercise: When your heart rate is beating at 80% capacity; it’s difficult to focus on anything but the exercise you are doing.

Habit Challenge

Do you find yourself engaging in mindless distractions out of habit, rather than a conscious choice?

If you always reach for your phone when you stand in line, what would happen if you stopped yourself and just stood in line?

Try and leave your phone in a drawer, when you’re working on a task. Close down your computer when talking on the phone. Eat lunch away from your desk and socialize with others in your household/office.

Or use one of the 4 strategies above to create more self-awareness.

Whatever you choose, the goal is to develop greater awareness around the habit for mindless distractions. Don’t look to change anything at first but rather discover how frequently it occurs and go from there.