How to Achieve Total Laser Focus

One of the most important attributes that you can develop to help you reach your goals is the ability to entirely and completely focus on the task at hand. However, concentrated focus is a skill that many of us seem to lack. We allow ourselves to become easily distracted, pulled off the path by negative thoughts, fear and procrastination.

Here are my top three tips to help you develop total laser focus.

Tip #1. Declare your current task as the most important thing in the world. Tell yourself that if you do not begin, stick to and complete this task by your required deadline then dire and appalling consequences will ensue.

We are often taught to concentrate on the positive, but I find that this is one time when the negative can be useful too. No, it may not be true that the world will end if you don't achieve your daily goal, but there are plenty of negative consequences for you to think about.

You will certainly be letting yourself down and you may be letting others down. There may be long term financial consequences and difficult times which could be avoided by getting this job done. Whatever the outcome, it is a useful exercise to raise the stakes for yourself as much as possible.

Write down all the bad stuff that might happen if you don't achieve this goal and pin it up where you work as a reminder why you should be getting this done. Pin it up next to all the good stuff that you're aiming for. This is the ultimate carrot and stick method.

Tip #2. Allow no distractions. We are whimsical creatures with butterfly minds and we like nothing better than being distracted from hard work. Our minds are constantly on the lookout for anything which is more pleasurable than what we're doing right now, so it is important to put up the barriers.

Tell family, friends and work colleagues that under no circumstances are they to interrupt you while you are working on your task. Turn off the phone; don't look at e-mail. Stay away from the TV and newspapers. Work in a quiet place where there is little background noise and where you can't hear other people's conversations. If that is not possible, use headphones and listen to calming music while you work. Train your brain to tune out extraneous noise and concentrate on what you are doing.

Tip #3. Do it, do it, do it, till it is done. This is the most important rule of all. Once you have raised the stakes and banned all distractions, you must take consistent, concerted and vigorous action. Have everything you need to hand, start when you said you would and keep going with full and complete determination till your task is complete.

Think of yourself as a highly efficient, well maintained machine which was designed to carry out precisely this task. Tell yourself that no other machine has ever existed that was so well suited to this job. Revel in your skills, enjoy your mastery of the task and take pride in your determination.

If you follow these three guiding principles, whatever you set out to do will become easier, be completed faster and will give you more pleasure. Try them next time you need to achieve anything important.

 
  • About

    headshot: David Beroff in St. ThomasDavid Beroff started writing software at the age of 11, and was teaching Computer Science at Rutgers University by the time he was 18. After designing software for two decades, he started his own Internet marketing firm in '95; one of his company's earliest successes was Freedback.com, a free feedback-form service that was later sold to Wondermill.

    Beroff had bought and sold four million voluntary, opt-in email leads generated with properties like LeadFactory and SuperTAF before the business failed in '07. He is the author of the book, Turn Funny Email into CASH!, and is currently developing a new social media site, AboutTh.is.

    He has two grown children, and now lives outside of Scranton with his girlfriend and five cats.

  • Contact

    If you have any questions or concerns about our website and/or our advertising, please feel free to email me directly: David (at) Beroff (dot) com.