Mastering the Mindset
Mastering the Mindset
Maximize Your Focus: 5 Straightforward Tactics for Personal Growth & Productivity
Feel like you’re constantly busy but not actually moving forward? In this episode, we break down 5 clear, powerful focus strategies that will help you eliminate distractions, boost your productivity, and finally take consistent action toward your goals. This isn't rocket science—but it is the stuff you need to hear (and actually apply) if you're serious about building the life you say you want. If you've ever searched for “how to improve focus and productivity” or “ways to stop being distracted all day”, this episode is for you.
Ask yourself: How many times do you check your phone each day? Why does your brain resist even the tasks you care about? And are you truly focused—or just multitasking yourself into burnout? Whether you're building your side hustle, studying for your next move, or just trying to stay locked in on your self-development journey, you’ll learn how to overcome the everyday things that silently kill your momentum. Listen now to discover daily focus habits, brain-training tactics, and real-life tools that will help you stay on track and level up for good.
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Losing myself and finding my strength, came to the conclusion that I want it all, feeling that pressure of trying to do better. I wanna reach heights, but too scared to fall, too scared to fail. You're way more scared of feeling regret. I'm not even trying. That's terrifying. I understand that. Chasing my goals are burying my clocks because it take time. I gotta go. I already know if I wanna grow, you breathe what you sow. That be the case, planting my seeds and water my base. Yeah, I made mistakes. Yeah, I know you grow in your garden, but watch for the snakes, the people that act like you crazy, but trying this, they fall away. They don't think it's possible. I think it's possible. That is just hate if they hate themselves because they're on the shelf.
Speaker 1:Why you create a life that you love. A life that you love, yeah, loving the fact you improving yourself, decided that you would not settle, decided that you got the drive to do what the road got. Bumping your foot on the pedal, you go up a level. You turn up whenever it's time for you to go. Put in that work. I know my worth. I know it ain't gonna be easy. Yeah, I know it hurt. One thing is for sure yeah, until they put me in this earth before I ride in that hearse. I'm chasing my goals.
Speaker 2:I'm chasing my goals, yeah, love and affect you, improving yourself. Decided that you would not settle. Decided that you got the drive to do it, to go, got bumpers in the gutter.
Speaker 1:I'm chasing my goals. All right, and welcome back to another episode. Thank y'all so much for being here. If you're watching me on youtube, go ahead and like and subscribe to the channel. If you listen to me on the podcast platform, please leave me a review. Those things help me out a whole lot. Also, become a supporter of the show. You can choose the monthly amount. It can be three, five, eight or ten dollars and you can cancel at any time. But why would you ever do that? Let's go ahead and jump right in.
Speaker 1:Today we're talking about maximizing focus. It's going to be a straightforward episode. A lot of this stuff is not rocket science, but still things we should think about and apply if we want to find more focus because, like I always say, the kind of person that you are who listens to this kind of podcast, that means you have goals, that means you got things you're working on, that means you know that in order to better yourself and your life, you need to work on yourself and to do that it takes focus, it just does so. I'm going to give you five keys, five strategies to help you do this, and I'll start by saying this and I say this often. But in order to get the life you want, you have to take action, and anything that gets in the way of you taking action is getting in the way of the life you want. And we we as humans, unfortunately, we are really good at distracting ourselves and the opposite of distraction is what Focus. But we are literally masters at distracting ourselves. Unfortunately, we are with society and technology and Netflix and Hulu and the president, things happening across the world, so much going on, so much to distract us, not to mention family and kids. So if we can get better and limit the amount of distractions that we cause to our own selves, we can get better at finding that focus and it allow us to be able to take more action and get things done which would, in the long run, get us closer to getting that life we want. So let's get to it. Five keys to maximize focus.
Speaker 1:Number one, and this is something we all know, but it has to be said stay away from your phone as much as you possibly can. From your phone as much as you possibly can. Literally, try to stay away from your phone as much as you possibly can, especially in the morning. You need to try to go for as long as you possibly can without looking at your phone in the morning, 45 minutes an hour, two hours if you can. It will help you start your day and be productive rather than being reactive. You don't want to be in reactive mode because that what happens is you feel like you have. It will help you start your day and be productive rather than being reactive. You don't want to be in reactive mode because that what happens is you feel like you have to catch up, like you're putting out all these many fires throughout the day Just many fires you got to put out from getting distracted by your phone. And I know I'm not the only one, right? I go to pick up my phone to respond to, let's say, an email or send a text. Next thing, I know I'm scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Or I want to look at a post I saved online to get ideas for my own post. Next thing, I know 20 minutes done, passed by and I still haven't done any work. Many fires, right. And I know this happens to you. And I have a fun fact for you Guess how many times you check your phone on average every day.
Speaker 1:Take a guess On average, we check our phones 144 to 205 times a day. 205 times, that's crazy, first of all. Second of all, it ain't the same for all countries. Guess who has the highest rate? Us, america, we, the ones that's holding down at 205. That's us, right. That is the literal exact opposite of focus and that's way too damn high, right.
Speaker 1:And studies show that spending a large time looking at your phone on a small screen on your phone it causes more stress and anxiety. Looking at your phone causes more stress and anxiety. We absolutely have to spend less time. Looking at our phones is literally important for your health. Because, let's be honest, 285 times a day, that's an addiction. Between Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and notifications and emails and blogs and games on our phones and videos All that screen time adds up. It adds up to our stress and anxiety levels.
Speaker 1:So please, please, please, figure out how to spend way less time on your phone. That distraction is real. If that means you should put your phone in another room, do that. Have a place in your house where your phone lives and only that room. Maybe not all day, but when you're trying to focus, right, put your phone in there. We need to be not distracted. You have to do what you have to do and figure out some way to not look at that damn phone, because 205, that's crazy. So that's one Stay away from your phone as much as possible. Number two prepare your brain.
Speaker 1:So again, studies have found that your brain doesn't like switching tasks. Your brain will have a natural resistance when you switch from one thing to another, and the reason why is because it uses more energy to switch from one thing to another, from one task to another. If you're working on your taxes, let's say, and you start, then you start grading papers. Next, it's going to be a resistance because your brain has to use more energy to gain focus on a different task. And this definitely makes sense, because I literally go through this every day. I have to plan my day, sometimes by the hour, because I work on so many different things throughout my day and if I don't plan it out, it's so hard to keep focus. Like the day I wrote this podcast, my daily plan that day was to clean up, respond to an email, look up some grant information, plan my snippet releases for my music video, make a social media post, go to the gym, write this episode, film some content to promote my music video, write three reels, then go to my kickball game, right? I don't know if that sounds like a lot to you, but let me tell you my brain to my brain that's a lot of different things. I literally have to write all that out.
Speaker 1:So make sure that you expect that going from one thing to the next, where a lot of times not feel good to your brain, you're going to feel resistance. So be prepared mentally and know this. And this is very important For the first four to six minutes. Studies show this that for the first four to six minutes your brain is going to resist, your brain is going to continue to resist this task switch. It's going to be harder to convince your brain that you need to keep going, to keep working at it. You're going to want to just say, man, I'm going to just do it later. Your brain that you need to keep going, to keep working at it. You're going to want to just say, man, I'm going to just do it later, right. And one of the things you can do is to dip your toes in first, figure out a way to ease yourself in or do a soft start. So that means you have to do the easiest part of that particular task first, or you have to literally go very slow on purpose for a few minutes to pace yourself. Your brain is going to need that ramp up period before you get past that four to six minute mark.
Speaker 1:So that's number two. Prepare your brain. Know that resistance is coming, plan what you're doing and know that for the first four to six minutes, right, it's going to resist. Be conscious of that. Right, it's going to resist. Be conscious of that. That's number two. Number three is eliminate as many distractions as you can. And again, this is something I'm literally working on in real time. But how many different types of notifications do you have on your phone Email, facebook, instagram. Are you on Tinder? Hinge, I ain't go front.
Speaker 1:I was on Tinder for a little bit and Hinge probably like a month, and I had to delete it. I ain't going to lie, I had to delete both of them. I was getting way too distracted and I saw a lot of folks I knew on there too, which was hilarious to see. I always laugh when I saw somebody I knew on there. I'm not laughing at them, just laughing at the fact that this is what life is Seeing my peers on date naps, and it was so distracting. I'll never forget the exact moment I knew I had to delete both Tinder and Hinge.
Speaker 1:I was in rehearsal Excuse me and I was just understudying, so I'm not actually on stage for nothing, but I was sitting there and probably a good 40 minutes went by and I was just swiping and swiping and swiping and sending messages and just fully just emerged in this damn dating app and I felt myself noticing that I was doing it for way too long and I kept going. Anyway, I literally felt like, yeah, that you were. You've been at it for a good little minute, ain't you Right? It's time to stop and focus. And I didn't. I kept going. I literally couldn't help myself for a second and I deleted them both that day. I knew I had way too many things on my plate. I just had to get rid of that distraction. Anyway, get rid of these distracting notifications, because when you have that time set aside and is dedicated to putting in that work, those notifications will pull you away. It will pull you out of it.
Speaker 1:Another distraction we have another, really big one other people. How can you let those other people know that this is a time that you have to be left alone to focus If you at work. What if you put on headphones? Right, you don't even have to be listening to anything. Just by having no headphones, especially if they're the kind that go over your head, people will be more than more likely to not bother you. Out of respect that you have on headphones, maybe you have to put a note on your door. How can you let other people know that you can't have distractions right now? Find out what those distractions are and eliminate them. How do you tell your friends or your significant other or your co-workers or your kids that, hey, I need this time to focus. Figure that out, eliminate those distractions and protect that focus.
Speaker 1:Number four stop multitasking. I talk about that a lot on here. I'm pretty sure I just spoke about this last episode, but there are studies, multiple studies that show that multitasking is actually worse. You better all focus on one thing at a time. It's proven that not only will you get those two, three things. How many you're trying to work on, you'll get those tasks done faster. However many you're trying to work on, you'll get those tasks done faster. You will also be more efficient as well as make less mistakes, because your focus isn't being pulled in multiple directions and actually, studies also show that multitasking ain't even real. It ain't even real. Your brain literally just goes from one task to another and it can't focus on more than one thing at a time. So you're really just switching your focus back and forth from one thing to another, back and forth, not at the same time and this causes what is called a cognitive switching penalty cognitive switching penalty, and this means that you lose some of that efficiency and you could make mistakes, make more mistakes, and you also don't do it as well. So stop multitasking. I know it might might feel like it works, you might think it's better, but studies show the opposite.
Speaker 1:Do one task at a time and then move on to the next one. When you finish with that one that's number four, number five have a notepad ready by you at all, or brain dump, or jot things down, whatever you want to call it and you have that pen and pad ready and whenever things pop up in your mind, you write them down. Right then and there, right, that's the important part writing them down immediately and moving on right. Write it down immediately, then move on, move on right away. So, let's say, if you're working on your website or studying for a test, and you think about, oh yeah, I should respond to this email, Write it down. Or if you think I should purchase this computer bag for traveling before my trip, jot that down. I need to buy sugar, or add sugar to my grocery list, write it down. I can't forget to make this payment. Write it down.
Speaker 1:Don't let it pull your focus from whatever that thing is you currently are working on, and this one is very important, especially for folks who have any level of ADD. Right, if you have any level of ADD, then you know staying focused on one task is hard as it is. Have that pen and pad ready, write those ideas that pop up and then get back to working. And it seems so simple, not just with focus, but with the being productive in general. Right, we can think that things need to be really complex for them to be effective for some reason. But if you have anything floating around in your head, no matter how simple or how important they are, taking up energy in your brain and you want to leave your brain with as much energy as you can, as much energy as possible, and writing things down will free up some of that energy. Put it on a piece of paper. Then you can get back to being focused, and I can tell you from experience that this really works, especially if you have a daily plan, which I also highly highly recommend. I can't stress enough how important it is to have a daily plan written out before you start your day, and when I have my pen and pad, I could just add things directly to my daily plan or add it to my daily plan for the next day. That way, I have all the things I need to get done right then and there I have all the reminders I need all in one place.
Speaker 1:Writing things down is such an underrated key. Don't switch tasks in the middle of doing what you're doing already. No, you just write it down whatever that thought was and then finish that task that you're already working on, and that way you won't forget that thought. Because that's real too right. I hate that right when you're working on something and you say, oh yeah, I need to buy air freser, and you don't write it down, and you get to the store and you're trying to figure out what the hell it is that you're forgetting to buy. I know I'm not the only one, right? I'll be up in Walmart just walking down random aisles trying to figure out what the hell I'm forgetting.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that's number five. Have a pen and pad with you, write things down, stay focused. So again, these are the five keys to help you maximize that focus. One stay away from your phone as much as possible, even if you have to leave it in another room. Two prepare your brain. Plan out your day, plan out those tasks. And also don't forget to ease into it. Your brain is going to resist for the first four to six minutes. To ease into it. Your brain is going to resist for the first four to six minutes. Don't let it stop you. Prepare for it, be aware that it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Three eliminate as many distractions as you can the notifications, email notifications, tinder. Tell your friend or family that you have to focus. Think of as many ways to eliminate as many distractions as you can. Notifications are a big one. Four stop multitasking. Study shows you actually are being less productive and not as efficient. You will make more mistakes that way. Cognitive switching does exist.
Speaker 1:And five have a pen and pad ready at all times. Write down those thoughts that pop up in your head. Don't let those thoughts pull away from your focus, write them down and then get right back to the task at hand. Like I said now, bracket, science, all things we know, right, I didn't teach you anything new, but I guarantee if you apply all these things, you will gain more focus Again. You got goals, you got things you're working on things you're working towards. We already live in a society, in a world, in a time that is distracting as hell, so focus is extremely important. So that's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1:If you like this episode, please share it on your social media. I know there's somebody on your timeline that needs to hear this or see this, and I thank you for it in advance. Also, become a supporter of the show. You can choose the amount. It can be $3, $5, $8, or $10. All right, let's go ahead and get to this music. The song I have for you today is another unreleased one. I put it on here before, but I'm going to do it again. This one is called Miss your Chance. Let's ride out.
Speaker 2:I suddenly became hyper aware of my body. I don't know what music that is. That music is all they have.
Speaker 1:They want me to me, like me, but I'm popping out tonight, Want to see me this show change. I'm about to hit my dance. Like yeah, I'm about to take this shot. Like yeah, I'm about to take this pick.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, I'm about to do me Like, yeah, you better not miss your chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you was looking for me, here I am. You better not miss your chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you was looking for me, here I am. You better not miss your chance. You're dope to me, like in them pictures on.
Speaker 1:IG. I feel like you close to me, but this ain't the gram. You in my space. I love when you close to me and your body language got manners. Love how it spoke to me. I love when you close to me and your body language got manners. Look how it spoke to me. That's how it's supposed to be. You look so fly. Right now, feel like I'm in a whole nother time zone. I feel like I'm overseas and I need bread. I need cheese. I ain't talking about groceries. Last year was so old to me. I know they've been waiting on my new shit, like Pope and me. Don't worry, won't be long, cause this one is my theme song. I take it back to the 2000s and make this my ringtone. I disappear. They was looking for me. They couldn't find me, like Nemo. But I'm popping out tonight. Wanna see me? This show change. I'm about to hit my days like. I'm about to take this shot, like.
Speaker 2:I'm about to take this pic, like I'm about to do me pick. Like, uh, uh, yeah, I'm about to do me like, uh, uh, yeah, you better not miss your chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you was looking for me here. I am you better not miss your chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you was looking for me here I am you better not miss your chance. Yeah, I be so smooth on the beat. I be that dude, your dude want you. Better not miss this chance. I am not the same. I'm out here, I am you better not miss your chance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you was looking for me.
Speaker 1:Here I am, you better not miss your chance.
Speaker 2:Got you.