The focus formula

In 2018 I noticed that I gave a keynote speech in Boston about guilt feelings to a room full of female entrepreneurs. In my speech I said:

“I would rather be a current mother 2 hours a day than a distracted mother for 4.”

A woman came to me after the conversation and said this was her Lightbulb moment. She realized by spreading herself too thinly, nobody got the best version of her.

And this happens in many scenarios:

• Check slack while eating with our family

• E -Mails send during the gym

• Twitter scrolling while he tries to decompcrimage on the couch

In my master class I learn the 5 Cs of lost time.

• C #1: Cognitive overload → try to remember too much

• C #2: Context switch → try to do too much

• C #3: Consumer diet → try to consume too much

• C #4: Chaos → Lack of organization

• C #5: Calendar Crawl → unrealistic expectations

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​Let’s concentrate on #2: context switching

On average, people need 9.5 minutes to return to a productive workflow after switching between apps or tasks. Let’s look at a visual of how we lose time by switching context.

So how do we solve it?

Enter: the focus formula

The focus formula is taking all your cognitive sources and placing a single source or task. Others can call this undivided attention.

“That’s nice. But I have so much on my plate and everyone always needs me.”

I hear this a lot in my coaching sessions.

My challenge for you is to understand why you don’t feel that your goals or needs are just as important as someone else’s.

Weak limits are a form of people who like it.

A person’s inability to close distractions (for fear of a text, e -mail, weak, etc.) is usually a fear of losing the love, attention, validation or needed from that person.

If this ping something for you, then it might be a sign to stay here and really sit with it.

• Ask yourself who that has modeled that for you.

• Who taught you that your needs come in second place?

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Ready to take your goals back and apply the focus formula?

Let me introduce you …

The an hour challenge.

For the month of May I challenge you to choose one thing that is important for you that you think you have not received your undivided attention.

Examples:

• That project that you want to send this year.

• Deepen your relationship with your children.

• Strengthening your relationship with your partner.

• Invest in friendships.

Choose something that you notice that you say: “If things slow down, I will concentrate on that”

Pause here.

Do not continue until you have the thing in your head.

Do you have it? OK.

Let’s concentrate.

Step 1: Plan it on your agenda

Choose a time that you can keep most days. Depending on the item you have selected, your time slots can vary.

For me – I immediately go to the gym after I drop the children and train from 8.30 am – 9.30 am before I am sucked into meetings or e -mails.

Step 2: Close it.

When that time comes, it’s time to close everything.

Ask yourself: what distracts me the most when I try to concentrate?

Now closed. It. Out.

I keep my phone on “Amanda Mode”, so that only the school, partner and parents of my children can reach me. Everything else has been silenced.

If you are working on a project, you close all non -related tabs.

Even e -mail.
Yup, slack too.

Switch off everything that is not related to the project.

If you are working on being more present with your children, remind yourself that it is an hour. You sit with them and play with them for an hour and you can wait all the other.

Step 3: Set a timer

Believe it or not, one of the biggest distractions

We look and start calculating minutes until the next task. We start to think about the next job, e -mail or project. We have lost the focus formula because your sources are no longer only focused on the thing for you.

So set a timer for 60 minutes and go to work.

Where the focus goes, energy flows.

Stop allowing the needs of others to distract yourself from the thing that you find important for the month.

Respond with what you are going to concentrate on and I will come back at the end of May and see how it went !!!