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Limited “mental RAM” = limited focus Usually many of these activities happen simultaneously, sharing focus between them. If too many of them fight for our limited mental resources, none will be done well. Like a computer running too many applications, it eventually the job gets done, but painfully slow. In our brain things also slow down if we overload it. Important decisions start taking ages, and simple operations drag themselves all over the place, no matter how hard you try rushing things around you. The walk in the park doesn’t feel so nice, food doesn’t taste so good, and your kid asks you to close your laptop and really give him some decent attention. Simply said, you are overloading your mental RAM and getting “out of focus”. Very likely your outcomes are sub–optimal. Accepting focus limitation improves your choice ability.
It always takes a final leap of faith, even some bravery, to dive into whatever you choose, forgetting everything else for a bit. Focus and Safety Focus depends heavily on safety, a really important human value. Focus on some activity will be higher or lower according to how safe you feel about not doing other activities that need your attention as well. If you suspect it’s not OK to be not doing the others, you’ll just keep an eye on them, internally assessing how dangerous it can be not
Too much emergency communication usually means lack of planning or unclear responsibilities. doing them instead. This possible trap involves new inputs as well, having us confronting the current choice with the new “threat”. It’s a constant surveillance that costs a bunch of your focus, mental energy and even joy! It can have you wasting a whole weekend thinking about how you might be getting some work done, and risk losing on both sides: no work done + no truly relaxed weekend without thinking about it...
Focus top 5 strategies
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Improve safety of choice. Keep a good collection of what you are not doing, building trust on each moment’s bet. It always takes a final leap of faith, even some bravery, to dive into whatever you choose, forgetting everything else for a bit.
2
Pace new inputs evaluation. New demands will weaken the trust of your choice and make you reassess options again. Keep them paced, with some kind of rhythm, like traffic lights, holding them outside your world until you are ready for more. Turn off any kind of email alerts, checking it fewer times and at more regular intervals. New thoughts and concerns will also pop inside your mind, distracting you from full focus. Be attentive and write them down, to be assessed later.
3
self to disconnect from everything. Be creative: try for example scheduling meetings with yourself in hidden rooms.
4
Reduce responsiveness. Having unanswered emails, calls, text messages, ..., can intuitively make you feel somehow at fault. Resist it. Go for reliability instead of quickness: answer always, but in a paced fashion, especially for emails. Strongly discourage emergency requests by email (or other “slow–paced” channels), and remember that too much emergency communication usually means lack of planning or unclear responsibilities.
5
Reduce options. Dramatically reduce options in front of you. Close windows and tabs on your pc. Remove paper documents from your desk. Hide your huge to–do list and make a quick guide for the day with a maximum of 2 or 3 options. Be proactively in charge of narrowing focus options towards what you really want to accomplish. a
!!Gonçalo Gil Mata Gonçalo Gil Mata is an executive coach, speaker and author. Dedicated to enhancing top performance
Have a “tunnel mode”. Frequent interruptions and focus redistribution may limit your focus depth. Use at least a part of your day to deep– focus high–value activities. Allow your-
with individuals and teams, he bases his methodologies in neuroscience investigation. He's the founder of Mind4Time.
! Links: Gonçalo on Facebook | Gonçalo’s Website
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