Focusing Pt 3/4: Training
Let’s hit the (mental) gym
All that’s left to do is get good sleep, find a quiet spot to work, do some deep breathing, clear your workspace and you’re all set. End of series.
…
Yeah I’m just kidding.
There’s tons of really solid tips out there on changing external factors to help focus. And I want to make it clear that I’m a huge fan of manipulating your environment to make things easier. It’s one of my favorite things to do actually.
I just don’t think that strategy covers the whole field.
I think the best improvement comes from setting up your environment…
And training you’re abilities.
So far you’ve learned how to protect yourself.
You’ve learned some specifics on what you could work on.
Now we can dive into the fun stuff. (My definition of “fun” includes “challenging” fyi)
But first as always…
⚠️Disclaimers⚠️ because I care about the spicy meatballs between y’alls ears:
I am not a mental health expert in any capacity. The strategies I talk about in this series are just what I experimented with on myself.
I do believe what I’m going to be talking about is important. But ONLY if it DOES NOT JEAPARDIZE your mental health. There’s a difference between learning to work with distractibility and doing mental harm.
Working on this stuff is difficult and can be taxing, I won’t deny it.
So please please PuhLEASE for the love of the gods do not push yourself to the point of burning out. I promise any amount of progress you do get from running yourself into the ground is not worth it and minimal anyway so there’s legit no reason to subject yourself to that.
Also I have been diagnosed with ADHD (as much as my imposter syndrome likes to deny it). But that does not make these strategies, “ADHD strategies”. It also does not make me an expert on ADHD. I’m only an expert on my ADHD. I phrase lots of things in absolutes. That doesn’t make them law. I just don’t want to type “I think” 8 million times.
I’d also like to remind you of the Focus Training Ground Rules
Accept these strategies take PRACTICE and REPETITION
Self compassion is a MUST
Moderation is MANDATORY
If you’d like to read over the specifics for each and why they’re important, click here.
Now that’s out of the way, welcome back to my Focusing series!
As a reminder here’s the game plan:
Part 1: Non-negotiable rules and why
Part 2: The different parts of focusing
Part 3: Strategies I use for each aspect (⬅️ you are here)
Part 4: The ultimate training technique that you’re going to hate
If you missed Part 1 or 2 you can click it to be taken to the web version.
Now I can feel warm and fuzzy that y’all at least know not run yourselves into the ground and that you have an idea of what each part of focusing means. Let’s get into the good stuff.
Time to Train (pun intended)
I am a personal trainer, so you have no idea how much I wish I could just give you a plan like, “do 3 sets of 1m staying on task, 4 sets of 12 reps recognizing distraction, etc.”
Lowkey sounds like a good idea in theory.
But unfortunately it’s not as simple as giving you a protocol to develop each part. The variables that impact how much each individual can handle varies wildly. Not only from person to person, but day to day, and even hour to hour.
Fortunately what you do to practice these can also vary wildly.
Some things are trained through more active practices (the core parts). Others are trained more passively (the adjacent skills).
Active training
When I say “active” I mean things that work best with dedicated sessions. Where you sit down to deliberately practice. The things that are at the core of the activity you’re trying to do.
To recap for focusing those are:
Holding attention in one spot
Recognizing distraction
Redirecting back on task
I’ve had the most success using simple timed sessions and letting the vibe of the day dictate what aspect I work on. Let me explain.
Start with timers (sorry I know, cliché, please don’t hate me)
It may take some trial and error to figure out your starting point. For some lucky souls that may be 45 minutes.
For me it was 10.
When I started dedicated training I only had about 10 minutes of concentrated effort in me per day before my effort outweighed any benefits.
For you it may even be 1. That’s totally fine. Don’t beat yourself up about it because that will only delay your progress. Gotta start somewhere.
Basically you want to pick a length of time that’s challenging but doesn’t turn your brain into complete mush.
Timers aren’t there to make sure you work for a certain length of time. They’re to confine your effort so you don’t overextend. I explain more on this later.
Your mental state determines what you work on
Which of the 3 core aspects you work on unfortunately isn’t entirely up to you.
On good brain days - when my thought tornado is more like a light breeze - I can practice staying on task for longer periods of time. By that I mean longer portions of the timer.
On these days I have to cap my work time. Relentlessly pushing feels productive in the moment. But almost always puts my brain on it’s ass. Don’t run yourself into the ground for the hell of it.
The time limit I set to protect myself is typically a total of 3 hours, broken up into 25 minute sections, each with 5 (ish) minute breaks. That’s not every day btw. (Also keep in mind different types of mental effort have different limits. I’m talking about creative mental effort here. But the specifics of that concept can be a letter on it’s own).
But on bad brain days there’s multiple thought tornados. That also have swarms of bees. IYKYK
They suck. I won’t lie. But they’re still valuable opportunities.
I use them to practice recognition and redirection.
I’ll set a timer, sit at my desk with my work pulled up, and get distracted constantly.
It’s challenging to describe how exactly to catch yourself in the act.
For myself I know keeping my work in front of me helps.
As my thoughts wander and my eyes follow I’ll end up looking at my computer screen eventually and remember what I was supposed to be doing. Every time I do, I say:
“Ope got distracted. That’s ok. Let’s refocus.”
Every. Single. Time.
It gets tiring. Developing skills is tiring. Like teaching a puppy to come when called. They’ll bolt a million times. But the more you call them back and reward them for it, the easier it gets.
That leads to redirecting back to work. Also a bit of a beast.
Pay attention to obstacles and barriers
The moment I realize I’ve veered off course and try to refocus is where I’m confronted with the most discomfort. Naturally my brain tries to protect me from it.
Sometimes that feeling is unbearable. Usually that signals an underlying issue. Like lack of clarity on what I’m supposed to be doing, or maybe something in my workspace is causing sensory discomfort.
In those cases I like to brain dump. It helps me to write out unedited streams of consciousness to help me uncover what exactly is causing the problem (I do this a LOT).
But sometimes that isn’t the case. Sometimes the only way is to push through. And that’s why setting a timer is so important.
If you sat me down on a bad brain day and told me to work on something until it was done, I’d be in agony. Not only would nothing get done, but my nervous system would be wrecked. Definitely for the day. Likely for a day or two.
But pushing for 25 minutes? That’s manageable.
I can tell myself, “I know today is a struggle. That’s ok. I’m allowed to struggle. Let’s just practice catching myself and redirecting for 25 minutes.”
Granted, on those days I don’t get a lot of actual work done. Instead I’ve invested energy into developing the necessary skills to work better in the future as opposed to stressing myself TF out and getting the same amount of work done anyway.
Practice and REST
Ground rule 1 reminder: You will not be good at this at first.
You won’t have it down in a week. You won’t master it if you only practice once a week either. It takes consistent repetition. More repetition that you think is reasonable.
It’s mental work. Worth it, but it’s exhausting. Which is why moderation is so important.
I like to use my frustration as the scale.
A little frustration is normal. Especially on a challenging project. And gradually pushing that threshold is beneficial.
It’s when it starts to feel controlling or overwhelming that it’s my sign to stop for the day.
It sucks to stop early. But pushing too far past that threshold strains your mental state, your relationship with focusing, and ultimately your work as a whole.
⚠️ Learn your own limits ⚠️
When I say I started at 10 minutes, I mean a total of 10 minutes. Per day.
Say what you want about how ineffective that sounds. But that grace created space for the development of my skills. Without frying my brain.
No matter what kind of brain day you’re having, pushing to improve faster at the expense of your mental health will reverse progress. I guarantee everyone will try it at least once though because I did myself. If you do, you’ll see what I mean.
Ground rule 2 reminder: NO SELF JUDGEMENT ALLOWED (i.e. self compassion is a must).
Not in a, “✨you should always love ❤️ yourself and everything is sunshine ☀️ and rainbows 🌈 and 🥰 happiness ✨” kind of way.
In a, “if you bully yourself during this practice the results will not stick” kind of way. At least not sustainably.
You’ll hate it. You’ll quit. You’ll end up right back where you started.
Like I said earlier, working on that self judgement and compassion is a skill to practice in itself. So seriously. Go easy on yourself.
Passive training
Working on the core skills alone will give some results. But they’re amplified if you work on the adjacent skills as well.
Discomfort and Boredom.
I say these are trained “passively” because I rarely use dedicated sessions.
As simple as they are to train, a lot of people avoid it. Because it’s uncomfortable.
My favorite way to train is just looking for opportunities to sit in boredom for a confined space of time.
Waiting to be called into a doctors appointment, (or waiting for the doctor if you want a real challenge).
Waiting in line somewhere.
Sitting on the toilet.
Waiting for water to boil.
Pretty much any point in time you can think of that you naturally pull your phone out to pass the time can be used as an opportunity to train boredom.
Notice all the things I listed have a defined end point. They don’t go on forever. That’s the key.
Discomfort tolerance is naturally trained when you practice being bored. If you weren’t uncomfortable being bored than you wouldn’t be trying to distract yourself from it right?
But discomfort can also be worked intentionally in other ways.
If I have to do chores, or cook, or go for a walk to get my daily steps in (really it could be anything) I like to look at how the activity feels. If it’s uncomfortable for any reason, I quickly think over if the level of discomfort is something I can tackle.
Sort of like fighting an enemy in a video game. You only want to fight enemies that are either slightly above your skill level or lower.
Like the discomfort of cleaning the kitchen is one thing. The discomfort of landscaping my mess of a backyard is completely different.
If the level of discomfort is something I feel I can handle, I start to do the task without any additional input (like podcasts or background shows).
I don’t try to distract myself from the discomfort. I don’t try to convince myself that it’s comfortable either. I exist with it, and when I complete the task I acknowledge that I did that in spite of what I was feeling. Reminding myself that I’m stronger than my mind seems to think.
“This task is uncomfortable. I know discomfort (in moderation) cannot hurt me. It is within my limits to handle.”
“Even though that felt like it sucked, I did it. I was able to do what I needed to do in spite of what I was feeling. And that is something to celebrate.”
So long story short, you need space to feel what your feeling. But that doesn’t mean you can’t also challenge yourself to move forward, and celebrate when you do.
You’re probably thinking, “how is any of that fun exactly?”
It’s not. At least not inherently.
But you have the power to make it fun.
Mindset shifts have been getting a lot of flak lately. Which I get, because I see a lot of people preaching them as the cure to everything.
I see them as tools.
Lately I’ve been thinking of many areas of my life like a video game. And it works really well in this circumstance.
You know that first time you played a game (especially a larger online multiplayer game) and you really freaking sucked. Zero kills, triple digit deaths, and your team lost.
But you saw potential.
During that one part you came 👌 this close to getting that one guy.
So you play again. This time you came even closer. Maybe the third time you get that first kill.
In the grand scheme of things you’re improving slowly. But it doesn’t matter because you’re enjoying the effort. Enjoying the challenge.
This concept is why I harp so hard on understanding the small areas of improvement and appreciating your wins.
I’ve been thinking about writing more about how I’m using video game context in my day to day life. I’m even working on a tool that let’s me collect “coins” and “xp” for day to day stuff. Lmk if y’all would like to hear about it.
But that’s all for this one. I hope you found it helpful! The next and final letter in this series will be about one method I use to train all 5 parts of focusing. And I guarantee some (if not most) of you will absolutely hate it and me for recommending it. 👀 Any guesses what it might be?
