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Let me be honest with you. I often let myself get distracted.
I know I am a person who quickly becomes enthusiastic about the many new things that come my way. And yet, I can enjoy it when I’m in the flow and fully focused on a task. That gives me a lot of fulfillment, and I would like to experience that more. Does this sound familiar to you?
My wife is a master of focus. If she has a goal, she can commit herself 100% and not be distracted. I see more people doing this, and I envy them. In fact, I have been looking for something that could help me focus better. In this and this article, I wrote about how you can be more productive, and I have also written about procrastination.
How do we get distracted? Mark Tigchelaar clearly explains this in his book Focus On / Off (currently only available in Dutch). I am very happy to have found this book. I have never read a book so quickly and with so much focus. There were so many tips and techniques that I could practice right away. It makes me very happy, and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.
After five years, Mark has published a new edition of his book with even more tips for focusing (‘focus bites’) in the new world (including hybrid working). This article briefly describes the book’s content, what is new, and my biggest insights. I also tell you why you should read this book and for whom it is written.
Who should read this book?
Let me start with that anyway. This book is ideal for people who are distracted too much, managers who do not get to work on their own tasks because they are constantly helping their team, people who are overstimulated, people who are on the brink of having a burnout (or currently have a burnout), entrepreneurs, people who work in an office garden, people who worry a lot, creative people, people who feel that they must constantly keep all the balls in the air and … people who are addicted to distraction!
Mark Tigchelaar is a neuropsychologist who discusses four concentration leaks that ensure you are not focused properly. All chapters are filled with the newest scientific evidence (which is easy to understand). The book’s first part discusses concentration leaks, and the second part focuses on productivity, manager distraction, and addiction to distraction.
The four concentration leaks are too few stimuli, too many internal stimuli, too little fuel, and too many external stimuli.
Too few stimuli
Your brain is a supercomputer and if there are too few stimuli, it will get bored. Then, it searches for distraction. For example, you dwell during conversations or distract yourself from work with X or Facebook.
Multi-tasking & Multi-switching
In this chapter, Mark explains the difference between Multi-tasking and Multi-switching. I always thought that Multi-tasking was not good. This does not seem to be the case at all! Multi-tasking is very good if you have too few stimuli. Are you doodling during a meeting? Very good! Apparently, you are better focused on the content of the meeting. It is not when you’re drawing a new layout for the office or your home …
You are multi-switching if you change too much between tasks. You do not complete a task because you’re starting something different (because you’re interrupted). You then lose time (and brain capacity) to resume your original task. You are switch-tasking when you realize that you are doing more things at once; When you find out that there is still a payment window open for a product you wanted to buy when you shut down the computer in the evening …
According to Mark, you shouldn’t do this because you will lose focus.
What you have to do is read, read, remember, remember.
Too many internal stimuli
As I write this article, I think it would be useful to email M&M about tomorrow’s meeting. I also realized that an invoice has not yet been paid. I want to send the client a reminder email. I also would like a good cup of coffee.
Our supercomputer is very good at distracting, making it difficult for us to focus.
Entlistungsfreude
What to do? Do a brain dump or mind sweep regularly and enjoy Entlistungsfreude. Write down all your ideas and tasks. This ensures peace of mind. After all, it no longer costs brain capacity to remember something. The Braintoss app was an absolute eye-opener for me. I do not always have a pen or paper to hand. If there is something you do not want to forget, record it. Braintoss will email you your reminder.
Routines
Routines also work well to deal with too many internal incentives. Here are my habits.
Mark encourages you to ask yourself at the start of the day what you have to do that day to go home fulfilled. Then, do the top three list of the most important tasks first.
Too little fuel
Your work’s quality and the quantity you can produce depends on your focus. It will be difficult to focus if you get tired of a lot of work or too little sleep.
Therefore, allowing your supercomputer to rest and recharge, for example, by taking a break is important. This can be done for simple tasks every 25 minutes, and for deep-focus tasks, it can be done every 90 minutes. Mark calls this defocusing.
That does not mean that you just watch a video on YouTube. Listening to podcasts, exercising or meditating (well, that was new to me …) are also not good to defocus. Your brain still absorbs information. It is very good to wander off, daydream, and look out the window. Walking also works well. And what about a power nap?
So, this wasn’t a good way to defocus even though the cappuccino was dirt cheap …!
Too many external stimuli
What causes the most external stimuli for you? For me, that’s my phone. But it can also be your colleagues, email, partner, and children. These are big concentration leaks.
Nevertheless, there are possibilities to deal with these external stimuli so that you can still get something done. It is important to reserve time in your agenda to work full focus and not to be distracted. This chapter is full of practical tips.
One is to distinguish simple tasks from difficult tasks. You do the difficult tasks if you know when you can hardly be interrupted (with the door closed, between certain times, or if you wear headphones). You do the simple tasks when you can expect a lot of interruptions.
Inbox to Zero
In the new edition, Mark gives you tips on how to deal with email. Every email provides a shot of dopamine (which makes us feel better). That’s why we often want to check if there is any new email. This is distracting and reduces focus. What you need to do is check and respond to your email at regular intervals. Mark recommends creating different folders for email (Action, Wait, Current Folders, Maybe Someday, and Archive). Based on a decision model, you can determine what you should do next when an email arrives. This also creates ownership. The most important thing is to identify a task, whether it is relevant, whether you must do it yourself, and whether it can be completed in 5 minutes or less.
What stuck with me was the following statement by Mark:
“We often see procrastination of work tasks as a lack of motivation, but in reality it is rather a lack of moments when we can work undisturbed.”
Why you should read this book
The book is written so that you can immediately apply what you have learned. It ensures that you want to understand what you are reading and you want to continue reading. Each chapter ends with a few specific tips, but if you read the chapters carefully, you will already discover techniques you can apply immediately.
You can find many more sources and tools online to help you focus better. If you have purchased the book, you can also follow an online training course. I will do this soon!
What will I do now to be less distracted and more focused? I will label my tasks to achieve a maximum of 3 daily goals. Also, I will do the most difficult task in the morning (when my brain is sharpest), and I will take real breaks more often and switch off my phone more often. Finally, I do these things to focus better.
How do you ensure more focus in your life? What do you do to get more done? Let me know in the comment field below. I and the other readers of this article are looking forward to reading from you!
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Have you seen an error in this article? Let me know! I am grateful!
Update: I wrote the original article on April 23, 2019, and it was updated on May 17, 2024, since a new edition of the book was released.
