It is natural to feel distracted and have difficulty focusing on your work, especially if it is something that you do not particularly enjoy doing. Sometimes, it can feel like an entire chain of thoughts that snowballs and pulls your mind away from what needs to be done at the moment. Loss of focus can not only heavily mar your productivity, but also leave you utterly stressed and anxious at not being able to keep up with your schedule. However, there are certain effective ways that can help prevent you from getting distracted at work. Here is a list.
Plan your day
When you are trying to ensure maximum focus and minimum distraction at your workplace, the best place to begin is by creating a schedule for the entire day. We all have specific hours of the day when we are likely to be most productive. That said, you can allot the most important tasks of the day to these hours, to ensure maximum efficiency and minimum errors. Also, planning your day in advance will help keep you on track and complete your tasks with ease.
Block distracting websites and apps
Remember when your parents used to set parental controls on the TV to deter you from wasting your precious pre-examination periods in front of the screen? Well, to be honest, these strategies aren’t meant just for naughty, unruly kids. Blocking distracting apps and websites is an effective way of controlling the urge to log in to your profile every two minutes and obsessively checking for new notifications. There are tons of helpful extensions such as LeechBlock and StayFocusd that you can install on your browser to limit your exposure to such distractions.
Steer clear off disturbing elements around the office
While it is important to interact with your coworkers at the office, an excessively nosy colleague can contribute to constant distraction throughout the day. If there is a chatterbox around your workplace that constantly distracts you with their annoying antics, a good pair of noise canceling headphones will probably do the trick. While your headphones will help deter most of the disturbing elements around the office, at times you might actually have to tell your coworkers directly that you are engaged with something important at the moment.
Focus actively
One of the most effective ways of improving your concentration at work is training your mind to actively repel distracting thoughts from your mind. For this, you need to first identify what the major triggers are that tend to pull your mind away from the intended task at hand. Once you have determined the main causes for distraction, you can find out ways of overcoming them as soon as they begin. The moment you are swayed by the thoughts of where you will spend your next vacation or how to surprise your significant other on their birthday, you need to actively push them away from your mind.
Provide yourself the incentive of returning to that pleasurable state of mind once you are done with the task at hand. Doing this will help you stay more focused and improve your efficiency at work.
