Building focus

Today, machines are becoming intelligent and we are losing a lot to them, in terms of cognitive skills and memory capabilities. Check out how you can stop this and reach your optimum capacity.

“Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                 ― Paulo Coelho

This Thursday (23rd June, 2022), we had an insightful discussion during our community Discord event. The event was about "Building focus". Machines are becoming smart day by day, rendering humans left with decreased capabilities. We no longer work on a task with undivided focus. Artificial intelligence is now even creating cover pages for magazines and much more. Check out what was discussed and how you too can learn, network, and grow as a professional.

Why bother at all?

We have been talking a lot about productivity, mind hacks, and now about building focus. But why are such topics meant for developers? Or anyone except those inclined towards spirituality.
The reason is simple, man is the ultimate being. 1 machine can do work of 100 men but no machine can do the work of an extraordinary man. But over time, we have become prey to machines, even in terms of basic computation, which earlier we used to do verbally.

We have become so dependent on technology that there is hardly any field where we are not using technology in any form. This has exponentially decreased the capacity of humans to do deep work. We have lost our ability to focus, So here comes today’s topic, “Building focus”.

Preventing distractions

Building focus is majorly about decreasing distractions. So to decrease distractions, we can do following steps ( from the book indistractable)

1) Find Emotion: when we get distracted, we escape from the reality as part of an internal trigger. First we need to identify this emotion, that feeds the distraction

2) Document: Write down the time when your emotions tick in, write down exactly how you feel

3) Observe: see what situation /problem are you trying to avoid by giving in to distraction. Do not judge, just try to think straight and

4) Be aware: look out for time when you stop focusing and get distracted, once you figure this out, try to control your emotions for those initial 10-15 seconds and see the magic happen.

Identify external cues

There can be various external factors leading to distractions. So here are a few tips to prevent them

1. Do Not Disturb DND : when working, let others know about it and make them aware of not disturbing you. You can use status option on communication platforms, or any physical sign near you.

1. Social Detox: Social media platforms can be a major source of distraction, so try to use them carefully. Some folks use digital well-being options to limit app usage.
   On other hand, you can become precise in your chat, preventing waste of time on unnecessary chats.
2. Meet less often: Always ask for agenda before meeting to prevent wastage of time. When in a meeting, try to be quick, clear, and brief. But in case you are in important meetings, try to be fully focused, and avoid using any additional devices alongside.
3. Be smarter than your phone: 120 FPS, O-LED displays lure you to use them more. But here’s your time to be unchanged to this and prioritise your time. Remove unnecessary applications from your phone. Turn off unnecessary notifications. Some people do another amazing thing, they keep the UI theme to white, yes white, opposite to what developers usually do. The idea is to make the phone less attractive and friendlier to the eyes so that you indirectly start using it less.

Make a Pact

Making precommitments can help you prevent distractions and be more focused. It can be done by

1. Effort pact: This makes it difficult for distractions to affect you. You can devote your efforts to a productive task that will all be rendered useless once you give in to distractions, For instance use forest app, build a forest and stay focused.
2. Price pact: bet with your friends/parents on a thing you want to do in specified time. If you break the pact, you pay. So the urge to save money will keep you focused, super easy..
3. Identity pact: try to identify yourself with a person who doesn't give in easily to distractions. If a person identifies self with a physically fit person, it will be heartbreaking for the person to give in to food cravings and give up exercising. Thus distractions become weak when your identification becomes strong.
   

I hope you liked it😊. Join us every Thursday for more such amazing events. we'll be waiting in the lounge. Come join our Discord now!