How to Focus Your Attention on What is Most Important in Your Life

How to Focus Your Attention on What is Most Important in Your Life

 “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”

Jose Ortega y Gasset

“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”

Jim Rohn

Keeping your attention on what is most important in your life is one of the most essential ingredients if you want to be able to:

Stick with your goals.

Achieve what you want to achieve each day.

Appreciate what you have in your life.

Clearly see how you can use your time here in the best way.

Like with most things, this is something that is of course easier said than done. It’s easy to get distracted¹ way too much and to feel overwhelmed², stressed out and spread out too thin.

But with some limits, with some barriers that keep much of the daily clutter³ out you can become sharp and focused once again. So let’s get started with that by establishing or reminding yourself of a few very helpful habits.

Write down your top 4 priorities⁴. Post them where you see them every day.

To keep your attention in the right place it is essential to remind yourself every day of what is truly most important.

So what is most important for you this year? An important project at work? Your family? Improving your social life? Your blog, photography, soccer or debt?

Think about it and reduce what is important in your life to the top 4 most important priorities. Write those four things down and post them in your workspace or on your bathroom mirror or on your fridge.

Work in a no-distractions⁶ zone.

When you work then do not work in a place filled with unnecessary distractions. Instead take a few minutes and make a plan.

Ask yourself: what are the 3 most common distractions that keep me from doing my work in a focused way?

Figure out how you can prevent those things from distracting⁷ you. A few suggestions to help you limit your distractions are:

Shut the door to your office.

Shut down email, instant messaging programs and put your cell phone in silent mode for an hour or more at a time.

If your place of work is busy and noisy use headphones with music or just noise canceling headphones without anything playing in them.

Having trouble sticking with it in that zone and to not start procrastinating⁸ or distracting yourself? Try using a timer – on your cell phone or use an egg-timer – and set it for 45 minutes. Then put in a drawer or somewhere where you can’t see it. During those 45 minutes dive in and immerse⁹ yourself in the no-distraction⁵ zone and your work until the clock rings.

This one works very well for me because I know that I do not have to stay focused and un-distracted forever. I just have to make an effort for 45 minutes and then I can do something else. If 45 minutes is too much at first then try a shorter time-limit.

Work with you have and use what you can from this list to make work much more distraction free.

Limit your input¹⁰.

Reduce the number of blogs, newsletters, magazines, book clubs, podcasts, twitterers etc. you are subscribed¹¹ too. Just keep the ones you are really getting something out of.

Limit your time in your favorite places online.

Many of us have favorite places where we get stuck online. It might be Facebook, Twitter, your favorite forum¹² or just checking the paper many times each day. A couple of things that have helped me to not get too distracted by such places is to:

Remove them from any favorites list in the browser¹³. Easy availability makes it easy to go there when you want to escape. So make it a little harder to get there. I have noticed that if I have to type in the address to that site then I usually forget about it a lot more and I don’t jump in there whenever I am bored or feel like procrastinating. Instead, I tend to forget about the site for a day or several days. It is out of sight and out of mind.

Use it in short bursts. After you have spent time working in your no-distractions zone you can relax or reward yourself with 5 or 10 minutes on your favorite website. If you can’t seem to be able to keep that time-limit then use the egg-timer or the timer on your cell phone to keep yourself in check.

Take a media- and internet-free day (or weekend).

I usually take at least one day during my weekend off from using the internet, reading the paper, checking my email and so on. That break helps me to better focus my attention on the most important things, to set clear limits between the workhours and the homehours and it helps me to relax and recharge myself so that I am more focused during the upcoming week.

Let the helpful sources influence you.

What you surround yourself with will be a big influence on you. Negative voices, people and media will drag you down and can easily redirect your attention on to the negative aspects of life.

Positive people, music, books, movies, quotes and surroundings etc. will on the other hand help you not just to keep your focus on what is most important and what is positive in life. They will also help you to broaden¹⁴ your horizons and let you discover things and aspects of life you may not have found or paid much attention to before.

1 distracted   

a.注意力分散的，思想不集中的

参考例句：

• When working, one should concentrate and not allow oneself to be distracted. 工作时要集中精力，不要分心。
• Noise outside distracted her mind from her studies. 门外的噪音使她心神不宁，无法集中注意力学习。

2 overwhelmed   

[ overwhelm ]的过去式

参考例句：

• She was overwhelmed by feelings of guilt. 她感到愧疚难当。
• If (one was) overwhelmed by passion, it could lead to serious blunders. 当感情完全淹没理智时，就可能铸成大错。

3 clutter   

n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱

参考例句：

• The garage is in such a clutter that we can't find anything.车库如此凌乱，我们什么也找不到。
• We'll have to clear up all this clutter.我们得把这一切凌乱的东西整理清楚。

4 priorities   

n.先( priority的名词复数 )；优先；优先权；优先考虑的事

参考例句：

• The document provided a revealing insight into the government's priorities. 这份文件使人看出政府的轻重缓急是怎样安排的。
• We must work together to fund only our most important priorities. 我们必须共同努力，只为最重要的项目提供资金。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

5 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

6 distractions   

n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱

参考例句：

• I find it hard to work at home because there are too many distractions. 我发觉在家里工作很难，因为使人分心的事太多。
• There are too many distractions here to work properly. 这里叫人分心的事太多，使人无法好好工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 distracting   

v.使（人）分心，分散（注意力）( distract的现在分词 )；打扰

参考例句：

• You're distracting me from my work. 你使我不能专心工作。
• Nothing is more distracting than a neurotic boss. 没有什么比神经过敏的老板更恼人的了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 procrastinating   

拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉

参考例句：

• Begin while others are procrastinating. Save while others are wasting. 当别人拖延时你开始。当别人浪费时你节约。
• Before adjourning, councillors must stop procrastinating and revisit this controversial issue. 在休会之前，参议员必须停止拖延，重新讨论这个引起争议的问题。

9 immerse   

v.使沉浸在，使深陷于；使浸没在

参考例句：

• Immerse the cloth in the dye for twenty minutes.把布浸在染料里20分钟。
• Don't immerse yourself in the infliction too long.不要长时间沉浸在痛苦经历中。

10 input   

n.输入(物)；投入；vt.把(数据等)输入计算机

参考例句：

• I will forever be grateful for his considerable input.我将永远感激他的大量投入。
• All this information had to be input onto the computer.所有这些信息都必须输入计算机。

11 subscribed   

v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意

参考例句：

• It is not a theory that is commonly subscribed to. 一般人并不赞成这个理论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I subscribed my name to the document. 我在文件上签了字。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

13 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

14 broaden   

v.放宽，变宽，扩大

参考例句：

• We broaden in experiences by traveling.旅行增长我们的经验。
• Let's broaden out the discussion to talk about education as a whole.我们来扩大一下讨论范围，全面谈谈教育问题。