How to focus more !!!

The art of selective ignorance

Mar 15, 2021

I am very excited to start sharing my thoughts with you all through this newsletter.😃

Well, today we will be talking about increasing our focus on a particular task. In other words how to inculcate selective ignorance within us. Then I will be sharing a few informative tech articles and some interesting tweets of the past few days.

In the present world, due to the development in technology and faster form of communication, we find ourselves in the middle of distractions.

So how do we actually focus on the tasks at hand?🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Distracting Listen Up GIF by Ramsey Solutions

There are numerous techniques for reducing distractions.

The most fruitful way is improving your self -control. But we know it doesn’t always work that way. Everyone doesn’t have that strong willpower to not open that app unnecessarily, not attend that time-consuming event and avoid many more distracting events, at all times. So it is important at least we try to minimize them.

It is possible to achieve this if we go on a schedule to make our life a more productive one.

Learn the art of selective ignorance!!!

Stay away from toxic people at all times.

We all at different points in our life indeed come across toxic people.

What to do with them? Just avoid them.

Try to minimise the time spent with them. Pick up your schedule in such a way as you occupy yourself doing what makes you happy. This leads to a reduction in time that you may have to spend with discouraging people around you.

Just remember that it is not bad if you ignore the wrong people for your own good. Do not let anyone consume your time just without any positive cause. Saying a polite “No” is the best way. If that does not work schedule yourself such that you can ignore them.

When we try to ignore certain things or forget a particular matter, it actually gets filled in our mind. How much ever we try, we cannot get away from the thought of it. But various researches have shown that this selective ignorance helps in improving our self-control. People who can choose what’s right and what’s not and practice this art of selective ignorance, become more efficient in focussing on their day-to-day tasks.

Found interesting research on this that you can refer to :)

The incredible power of ignoring everything

⇒ Below are some more tips that I practice for focussing more on tasks at hand. Hope it will help you too.

If possible, having 2 contact numbers is a good idea. One for personal use other only for official purposes. This way you can separate the work hours from free time.

Ask your clients and friends to text before calling, as this might help in scheduling the call to the desired time slot. (P.S. Emergencies are exceptions)

Lower your urge to open every other app unnecessarily at specific intervals of time. The best way to achieve this is by uninstalling the apps from your phone and using web apps. This reduces the usage as you have to now click more to open the particular site.

Lessen your information consumption. It’s true that with rapid communication, false, unnecessary and negative information gain more space amongst other pieces of information. So lowering the news consumption or any other form of information consumption helps in the long run. If it is that important information to you, you will definitely hear it from your friends and families or just by skimming through newspapers.

Practice time blocking or timeboxing method. This is blocking a specific time for each task. Plan it in your head or note it down well in advance so you can efficiently achieve more.