4 Tricks To Get Your Work Done When You Just Can't Focus
If you’re easily distracted or have difficulty staying on task, this is for you.
Vadym Pastukh | Shutterstock As short-form content continues to destroy our attention spans, the number of people reporting struggles with focus only continues to rise. In 2022 alone, two out of the three people reported trouble focusing on a single task, let alone being productive for an entire workday.
If you’re one of those people burdened by distractions or an inability to focus, consider some of the helpful tricks business and mindset creator @billionareunions shared on Instagram.
Here are 4 tricks to help you get your work done when you just can’t focus:
1. Follow the 5-minute rule
Sometimes, the hardest part of being productive is simply starting a task. So, try this timer hack to help motivate yourself to at least start — whether it’s a short project or an entire day’s worth of work.
Set a timer for 5 minutes, work on the project for those five minutes, and then figure out where you’re at.
GaudiLab | Shutterstock
Chances are, you’ll continue to work on the task after those five minutes because of the momentum you’ve just built up. No longer is the task a scary unknown — you’ve started it, know what you’re getting into, and have built a foundation of focus.
Continue setting timers, maybe for 10 minutes or 30 minutes, so there’s an “end in sight” when it comes to working.
2. Set limits on learning time
In addition to starting and prioritizing the work that needs to be done, think about how you want to spend the chunk of time you’ve dedicated to working. Whether it’s 30 minutes or 7 hours, consider setting boundaries and limits to what you’re working on.
Specifically for people learning new things or studying, use the “learn and apply” rule to guide your time throughout your interval. Learn something new or study for an hour and then apply what you’ve learned for the next hour.
Instead of learning new things for the entire time, you can break up the monotony of studying by applying what you’ve learned in a different way.
For work, this might simply mean taking a break every few hours or switching up your tasks if you’re feeling your energy draining. The more variety we bring to our days, the more motivated we'll be. That means lowered temptation of checking our cell phones.
3. Motivate through action
fizkes | Shutterstock
Many people confuse the relationship with motivation and action — believing that if we motivate ourselves to get work done with praise, caffeine, or planning, we’ll somehow get more work done.
However, in truth, it works in an opposing direction. When we start with a little action, we motivate ourselves to keep going.
“Small action leads to motivation which leads to more action,” they wrote. Using the 5-minute hack or starting your workday with a small task like cleaning your inbox can help to motivate our minds and boost our energy levels to attack more time-consuming or difficult projects and tasks.
4. Prioritize 2-minute tasks
Lastly, switch your mindset when it comes to planning and approaching work on your to-do list. If something is going to take you 2 minutes or less to complete, just do it now.
Kaspars Grinvalds | Shutterstock
For example, picture this: you get to work, sit down at your desk, and open your email. You see a message asking for clarification on something you sent last night. Opening the email, reading it, and responding will take the same amount of time as writing it down somewhere else. Just do it.
Not only does this alleviate the stress of remembering multiple things you’re responsible for before they get written down, but it also helps you to make the best use of your time.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.