9 Habits The Most Focused People Permanently Remove From Their Life, According To Psychology
Lose these habits, achieve hyper-focus.
Blake Cheek | Unsplash It’s a concept that describes where you put your attention and how effectively that attention is used. When you focus on several things or your concentration is poor — you spread your awareness more thinly, and your focus diminishes. Focus is a skill, and we need it to enjoy the rewards of putting sustained and channeled attention on the things that matter.
Here are 9 habits the most focused people permanently remove from your life, according to psychology:
1. Responding to distracting notifications
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Many of us kid ourselves into allowing distractions into our environments because we have an emotional connection to those things.
Email notifications, music, visiting toddlers, YouTube videos, text messages, and talking to colleagues. They are all excuses, diluting your needed attention, no matter how much you rationalize allowing them in.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for attention and decision-making and can become overwhelmed by too many stimuli. This can lead to decreased productivity, difficulty completing tasks efficiently, and increased stress, according to Massachusetts General Hospital.
2. Drinking caffeine
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I love caffeine, it boosts my mood, but this high comes with a cost. We may have more “energy,” but our focus takes a hit. Why?
Because caffeine puts us in a heightened state, making it harder to bring our attention to any one thing. We become twitchy and more easily distracted, thinking we’re more focused when we’re not. A calm, unstimulated mind is ideal for focus.
Caffeine can negatively affect focus efficacy in several ways, including sleep deprivation, anxiety and irritability, and health problems. Using caffeine to stay up late studying can lead to sleep deprivation, reducing your ability to perform well on exams, complete assignments, and retain information, according to a 2021 review published by the National Library of Medicine.
3. Multi-tasking
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Even though it may be tricky, doing several things at once is the opposite of focus. Strong focus means you are doing one thing at a time, undistracted, totally present, and ideally in a flow state. That’s focus.
4. Being self-conscious
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If, for whatever reason, you’re thinking about yourself, how you look, and what’s ‘wrong’ with you…your performance will be minimal. Focus should reflect ease in your environment. If you’re uncomfortable, you will be in your head — and this sucks for focus. Get comfortable and let go of self-pressure if you want to be focused.
A study by the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences found that when people are self-focused, they may experience negative affect and make negative judgments about themselves and the environment. This can lead to decreased effort and demotivation.
5. Hyperfixating on negative thoughts
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Steven Pressfield said, ‘The more important a call to action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel to do it.’ Resistance is inevitable, especially if the work is meaningful to you.
So your focus relies — not on your clever ability to never feel resistance — but rather on being OK with this feeling and power on regardless.
2022 research found that the resistance we mayexperience in a task is mainly based on our reaction to negative thoughts and feelings. Instead of non-consciously pushing tasks away to escape these thoughts or emotions, we need to recognize and allow these feelings, knowing that we can have them without being them.
Resistance takes many forms, but fundamentally, it is captured by “I don’t feel like it.” You may not feel like it because you’re telling yourself you’ll never succeed. You may not feel like it because it takes too much effort. You may not feel like it because you’re afraid of failing or have a deep resentment.
6. Being inconsistent
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Focus must be thought of in general terms, not as a one-off act. We’ll always experience moments when we’re distracted — that’s human. Habits make the difference. If you are not habitually doing the same thing over and over, you won’t reap the benefits of consistency — one major aspect of which is focus. Focused writers are consistent writers.
2020 research by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that consistency is vital for building habits, which can become second nature and define daily life. According to The Power of Habit, habits are formed through cues, routine, and reward.
7. Not sleeping
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Getting inadequate sleep is no longer trendy. You may enjoy bragging about how you can manage on less than 6 hours, but you will pay for the accumulated deficit in the long term. Sleep directly replenishes the mind and body, especially for women, which is vital for superior focus.
8. Not releasing tension
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The state of your body is underrated. If we’re stressed in the mind, we will be stressed in the body, too. This is the least effective mode for focus.
Forget your worries and understand the necessity for you to be physically relaxed. If you sense tightness, focus on taking belly breaths for a couple of minutes or even having a goofy shake-out dance. Loosen up before expecting to concentrate well.
Chronic stress can rewire the brain, causing the prefrontal cortex, which handles higher-order tasks, to become less active. According to research by Harvard Health Publishing, the amygdala, which is focused on survival, becomes more active.
9. Incompleting projects
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Having too many projects happening simultaneously is not particularly bad for focus. We all have tons of data coming in. It’s not that. The issue is that you don’t prioritize finishing what you start.
Leaving a trail of unfinished projects instills in you a lack of urgency and, subsequently, your lack of focus on any one thing becomes a self-fulfilling reality.
According to a study published in the National Institutes of Health, those who don't consciously prioritize their tasks may be less efficient at work than those who do. The key to successful workload prioritization is to continually work on your ability to assess and reorder your tasks based on their urgency, importance, and potential impact.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.