A word on staying focused

We all talk about staying focused. When we have a goal (big or small), we tell ourselves to stay focused. We all know how important it is to stay focused, in order to get things done, and ultimately to achieve our goals.

But what is stopping us from staying focused? Or what is the literal “opposite” of staying focused? It is to get distracted, right?

And the world is oh-so-full of distractions these days.

So we naturally focus on staying away from distractions. We have a set of very well-known distractions – TV, mobile, interruptions at work, social media platforms and so on.

So we go on to use technology (like browser plugins, software etc) to restrict our online distractions. We use traditional methods to restrict or avoid offline distractions.

But still, at the end of the day (or week, or month), we have many planned tasks unfinished. Why is that so?

It is because of this one loophole – we fail to recognize the actual distractions.

Of course, the TV, or the internet are distractions. But an even more dangerous distraction is what we think to be “work”.

When we end up with incomplete tasks, and when we look back the day or the week, what do we normally see?

A busy day, or a busy week, right?

We put our efforts into what we think is work. However, most of it turns out to be “not real work” – and they are a trap.

We keep ourselves busy with those pointless works that either don’t move the needle or move the needle in the wrong direction.

But since we are busy, we convince ourselves that we have been working, only to know later that we have not accomplished the actual tasks.

Before you turn off the conventional distractions, sharpen your vision on the fake work and eliminate then from your schedule. That’s when you get the actual work done 🙂

I would like to hear more about your experience on this (fake work), or any tips on identifying fake work! Please share in the comment section below 🙂