Finding Focus & Time to Be Productive
Why Did the Chicken Cross My Mind?
Several years ago, I bought my husband a shirt that said, “They say I have A.D.D., but they just don’t understand. Oh look! A chicken!” It was my not-so-subtle hint that he was a bit distracted. Of course I soon realized he wasn’t the only one with a chicken problem.
I blame grad school for my journey into the great abyss of distraction. There were so many ways I had to split my time and attention thanks to teaching, going to class, writing papers, raising my girls, spending time with my husband, trying to maintain friends, and of course, finding time to sleep. But I bet if we are honest, we all experience days where it is a challenge to stay focused and manage our time.
As I’ve continued to struggle to keep my proverbial plates spinning, I’ve tried to find ways to help me regain focus and better manage my time. Here are a few things I’ve tried and what I’ve learned about myself along the way.
Focus
One of the hardest things for me is finding the right amount of focus. I tend to be an all or nothing kind of gal. When my focus is at the extreme, I look up to find hours have passed, and I haven’t even gotten up to go to the bathroom. Clearly this isn’t healthy and could lead to serious consequences (blood clots anyone?). But there are other times, despite my best attempts to focus, I experience inevitable and constant interruptions. It’s at those times I suspect the universe is conspiring against me! When this happens, I get even more side-tracked by focusing on some project that earlier I didn’t even know existed.
So I’ve tried to find middle ground. One way I do this is to work at home on the days I’m not teaching. For me, I can usually minimize distractions by being where people…aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, I like people, but if I have a project that has to be completed, I need to be by myself to do it. That usually involves me working at home during the day, late at night when my family is asleep, or on the weekends at the office when I have the place to myself. I’ll admit sometimes I do get distracted when I realize clothes have been in the washer for 24 hours and need to be dried, or the dogs won’t stop barking at their trash-truck nemesis. But I use those as forced breaks to make myself get up move (and hopefully avoid throwing a blood clot!). This may not be ideal for everyone. Some people work best at coffee shop or surrounded by other people, but for me, solitude equals more focus.
Time
In addition to being focused, tracking time is another way to improve my productivity. When you want to lose weight, one of the first things people recommend is to track what you eat. Before nifty iPhone apps, this required manually recording every morsel with a pen and paper. Even when I worked in advertising, we kept track of billable hours with the same pen and paper method until job management software helped us do it electronically.
Now with our phones, we can easily use technology to help track what we eat, how much we sleep and where we spend our time. Being accountable to ourselves is something we can do if we really want to take steps toward change.
There are several apps I’ve downloaded in a desperate attempt to do this. I’ve not reached the ‘app mastery’ level yet, but I am trying to find ways to incorporate them into my life. Here are three apps I’ve tried. Some may require a fee, but for me it is a small price to pay for positive change.
AutoSleep: One of my biggest issues is not getting enough sleep. In fact, when I started tracking my sleep, I realized how bad I was at it! This app automatically tracks different aspects of sleep. While it doesn’t have to be used with an Apple iWatch, the watch does provide more detailed measures such as time asleep or awake, rating of sleep, time in deep sleep, and heartrate. I’ve seen a difference in my overall sleep quality which is terrific, but I also think some credit goes to our new mattress!
LifeCycle: LifeCycle is another tracking app that provides a new perspective on what I’m doing and where I’m doing it. It uses GPS to track activities like working, commuting, and being with friends. You can customize LifeCycle to track time spent at a specific location. It shows your time allocation in the form of a donut, and it provides trends for each activity. It is interesting to see the places I go, but since I work so much at home, it doesn’t differentiate what I do when I’m there. But one thing I did notice is the amount of time I spend at Sonic. In March my time at Sonic increased by 309%! I was there a total of 1 hour and 17 minutes. What can I say, yes, I’m a diehard Sonic fan!
Hours: When I realized I needed help tracking my time more accurately for specific activities, I did some research and decided to try out an app called Hours. The app is easy to use and you can set up any number of clients and projects. For example, two of my clients would be TwoPhds (my Vision Venture) and BCOM (my full-time job). Then I set up specific projects for each client like writing for this blog or grading student papers. The app reminds me when I forget to stop the timer and can alert me if I forget to turn it on (which happens all the time!). An article about Hours on Forbes.com noted how we live in a world of ‘enforced distraction’ thanks to the multitude of apps on our devices that all demand our attention. Hours has helped me to be accountable and intentional with my time. Plus, I can go back and add or delete time in case I do forget to turn it on or off. I mean really, who actually teaches a class for 15 hours in one day!
These are just a few things I’ve been working on to develop new positive and productive habits. This isn’t a one-and-done process, and I’ve got a long way to go to make these sustainable. I’d like to know what helps you to focus and manage your time? We all can use some fresh ideas to help us power through and avoid being distracted by those annoying chickens!