Tag: focus

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The power of focus — Part 2

Cougars, like all cats, fo­cus in­tently on their prey.

Some people find it easy to in­tensely fo­cus but, for a lot of us it re­quires some thought and plan­ning to achieve this state. My ba­sics to set the stage are time, place, and short breaks.

Time : A reg­u­lar sched­ule will al­low your body and brain to be­come ac­cus­tomed to the routine and settle in more easily.

Everyone has their own time of the day or night when they are at peak fo­cus. This is when you ex­per­i­ence your sharpest think­ing and cre­at­ive en­ergy. For me, it’s early morn­ing be­fore any­thing else clut­ters up my mind.

Place: This is the space where you keep your tools – pen and pa­per, com­puter, paint­brush, whatever. Going to your cre­at­ive spot at reg­u­lar times lets your cre­at­ive side know it’s time to wake up.

Ideally, this is a quiet place where you’ll be un­dis­turbed. If si­lence is im­possible, ear plugs or noise-can­cel­ling head­phones can shut out or re­duce sounds.

Distractions are the en­emy of fo­cus. It’s best to shut off or not re­spond to com­puter and cell phone no­ti­fic­a­tions while work­ing. Talking also dis­rupts the cre­at­ive cir­cuit, as it uses a dif­fer­ent part of the brain.

Although some people think they’re great at mul­ti­task­ing, re­search shows that, on av­er­age, it takes ap­prox­im­ately 25 minutes to re­gain fo­cus after an interruption.

Breaks: Just like our bod­ies need a break from sit­ting or stand­ing, the brain needs peri­od­ic time-outs to op­er­ate at max­im­um ca­pa­city. Ten to fif­teen minutes of activ­it­ies that re­quire little thought, such as fold­ing laun­dry, weed­ing, or stretch­ing, give your brain a rest.

Going out­side, be­ing in nature, and walk­ing are es­pe­cially help­ful. When I told chiro­pract­or, Alicia Steele, that I fre­quently find solu­tions to writ­ing prob­lems while walk­ing, she ex­plained that the bi­lat­er­al move­ment of arms and legs pro­motes activ­ity in both sides of the brain.

Taking a break and do­ing some­thing re­l­at­ively mind­less can en­hance fo­cus and cre­ativ­ity, but the key is to not think about the pro­ject you’re work­ing on.

While re­search­ing The Cougar, Beautiful, Wild and Dangerous, I was amazed at the big cat’s in­tense con­cen­tra­tion. When mov­ing in on prey, they nev­er shift their gaze away from it, even when circ­ling around or chan­ging position.

They’re totally fo­cused. Just like the man I saw jump­ing from a stand­still up six feet onto a con­crete ledge. (See The power of fo­cus – Part 1)

 

References:

“Want to be more cre­at­ive? Let your Mind Wander,” Sian Beilock, Psychology Today. 

“Keep the Focus on Your Long-term Vision,” Mayo Clinic.

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein.

 

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The power of focus — Part 1

A Great Blue Heron look­ing for fish.

It was a cold and blustery, yet thor­oughly splen­did fall day when I roun­ded a corner near the mar­ina and saw the man. He crouched slightly at the bot­tom of con­crete stairs, arms ex­ten­ded, el­bows bent and palms fa­cing each oth­er. The most un­usu­al thing was that he re­mained per­fectly still for at least two minutes. He re­minded me of a her­on wait­ing for a fish to spear.

He was at the entry­way of the path I wanted to take so I paused to fig­ure out what was go­ing on. Then, In one flu­id move­ment, he lowered his arms, raised them and jumped lightly onto the six foot con­crete ledge in front of him. The fact that the heels of his feet hung over the edge did noth­ing to hamper him from slowly and grace­fully stand­ing up.

I was awed by his strength and body con­trol. But even more so by his in­tense fo­cus. And he had good reas­on to fo­cus. If his jump had failed, he would have fallen back­wards onto the con­crete, per­haps break­ing his back, head or end­ing his life altogether.

Dumbfounded, I didn’t even see him re­turn to his start­ing po­s­i­tion. But there he was again, crouched at the bot­tom of the stairs with no dis­cern­able signs of movement.

He seemed ob­li­vi­ous to me or any­thing else but I wor­ried about dis­tract­ing him, so slowly con­tin­ued my walk with head tilted down­wards, peek­ing at him from un­der the brim of my hat as he ex­ecuted two more per­fect jumps.

By now, I was close enough to no­tice that he was speak­ing to someone, through Bluetooth ear buds after each jump. Was the per­son on the oth­er end coach­ing him? Or were they a safety link in case he fell?

Later, I wished I’d stopped to talk to him but there was no way I wanted to in­ter­rupt his con­cen­tra­tion. As a writer, I’ve been in a sim­il­ar state a few times — sur­fa­cing from a story to real­ize hours have passed in­stead of five minutes, or to dis­cov­er the faint sound I’d been hear­ing was really a repair­man pound­ing on the door, ir­rit­ated that I wasn’t let­ting him in when he could see me sit­ting at my desk.

Intense fo­cus is not easy to achieve. Especially these days with cell­phones and oth­er devices read­ily to hand. But it’s an art worth achieving.

Check out the up­com­ing November blog to read about cou­gars and fo­cus, as well as sci­en­tific­ally proven ways to gen­er­ate that state of mind.

Photo cred­it Joshua Goddard

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Focus like a Cougar to Finish Your Book

Writing a book is an in­tense, chal­len­ging and re­ward­ing pro­cess. But if you’re work­ing on a big pro­ject and the dead­line is loom­ing, the in­tense and chal­len­ging as­pect can be overwhelming.

That’s how I felt last fall as I struggled to fin­ish The Cougar: Beautiful, Wild and Dangerous. I had so much fas­cin­at­ing in­form­a­tion! How could I pos­sibly con­dense it into suit­able ma­nu­script length by March 31?

Then I read an art­icle about ac­com­plish­ing goals in the Mayo Clinic news­let­ter. The three main points were:

1. Clarity of fo­cus. The best nev­er lose sight of the goal. The event is circled on the cal­en­dar. As the count­down be­gins, all activ­it­ies are dir­ec­ted to­ward that date.

2. Tunnel vis­ion. This means hav­ing the cour­age not to ac­cept an en­gage­ment or even re­spond to an email that doesn’t ad­vance the goal.

3. Intense com­mit­ment. Distractions must be elim­in­ated. That in­cludes cut­ting back on non­es­sen­tial ob­lig­a­tions. It also means hav­ing the dis­cip­line to walk away from people who are neg­at­ive and un­sup­port­ive.

I prin­ted those guidelines out and put them on my desk where I would see them every day. In or­der to ac­com­plish what I needed to do with­in the time avail­able, I cre­ated monthly, weekly and daily goals. It might sound scary, but it kept me on track!

Taking my com­mit­ment one step fur­ther, I set up my laptop in an up­stairs bed­room. That way I wasn’t dis­trac­ted by Rick, the dog or the ringing of the phone. And I didn’t have ac­cess to the in­ter­net and email un­less I used my PC down­stairs. It’s amaz­ing how much time that saved!

Some de­cisions were dif­fi­cult. I lim­ited get to­geth­ers with friends and, even though Bailey got a walk every day, there weren’t as many of the long, off leash romps on the beach that we both en­joy. Of course, none of this would have been pos­sible without an un­der­stand­ing and sup­port­ive partner.

A cougar focuses on its prey with intense concentration, never shifting its gaze even when circling around or changing position.
A cou­gar fo­cuses on its prey with in­tense con­cen­tra­tion, nev­er shift­ing its gaze even when circ­ling around or chan­ging position.

Cougars are known for their in­tense fo­cus so every day I told my­self to “fo­cus like a cou­gar.” I of­ten asked my­self, “Does this have any­thing to do with cou­gars?” If the an­swer was no, I made a note to deal with it after I sent the ma­nu­script in.

And yes! I made my dead­line, right on March 31. The Cougar will be in stores near the end of Sept.

Will I use the Mayo Clinic guidelines again? You bet! They’re ex­cel­lent strategies for fin­ish­ing a book, art­icle or thes­is. Or whatever else your goal is, be it train­ing for a mara­thon, los­ing ten pounds in two months or be­com­ing a millionaire.