The Mindset Mentor - 7 Keys to Maximize Focus

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Humans are masters of distraction! And if you want to stop being distracted you must master your focus. In this episode, I’m going to give you 7 strategies to mastering your focus! Follow me on IG for more inspiration here: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ If you live in the US/Canada and you want to receive motivational texts from me, text me now at 1-512-580-9305 or click here https://my.community.com/robdial Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you live in the United States or Canada, sorry, everybody else, and you want to receive motivational text messages from me, text me right now, 512-580-9305. right now, 512-580-9305.

Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about the seven keys to maximizing your focus. Here's the one thing that I've been really big on in the past year or so. It's very simple. In life, to get the life that you want, you're going to have to take action. And anything that gets in the way of taking your action is then getting in the way of the life that you want. And one of the things that I have found with us humans

is that we are really, really good at distracting ourself. And the opposite of distraction is focus. And so if we can master how to stop, if we can, first off, stop thinking about how to distract ourselves and get off of that because we're masters of distraction and become masters of focus, we will be able to get more done with every action that we take. And that means that we will then be closer and closer to the life that we want. And so that's why we're going to go through these seven

keys to maximizing your focus here. So let's just dive in. Number one, this one should be simple. Stay away from your phone as much as you this one should be simple. Stay away from your phone as much as you possibly can. Like try to stay away from your phone as much as you possibly can. Because usually, especially in the morning, I would say go as long as you possibly can before you ever look at your phone. If you can go 45 minutes, an hour, two hours before you ever look at your phone, it will help you start your day off proactive versus being reactive. You don't want to be in reactive mode because then you feel like you're just putting out fires and you're just trying to catch up with your day.

What you want is to start your day feeling proactive. Do you know how much the average person looks at their phone throughout the day? Like just checks it, just looks at it and says, Oh, what time is it? And looks and see whatever notification came in. Do you know how many times they check it every single day? You check your phone on average 150 times every single day. There's notifications, there's phone calls, there's text messages, there's emails, there's Instagram, there's checking the time. And studies have found that looking at a small screen like your phone,

looking at a small screen actually cause more stress and anxiety in your life. So if we know that it's a fact through studies that your phone, by looking at it, causes more stress and anxiety, how can you stay away from it as much as possible? And what's crazy is they found out that looking at a big screen like a TV doesn't cause near as much stress and anxiety

as looking at a small phone that's closer to your face. And so knowing that and knowing how addicting phones can be and knowing how addictive Facebook and TikTok and Instagram can all be, how can you start to figure out a way to leave your phone away from you as much as you possibly can? If you need to sit down, need to be focused, put your phone in another room

so that therefore your brain doesn't even feel the pull to it. And literally have your phone in another room, put it inside of a drawer, have a place in your house. If you're working from home right now, have a place in your house where your phone stays. And when you need it, you can go get it, but then you just put it back immediately. So that's the first thing to help you maximize your focus.

Stay away from your damn phone as much as you possibly can. Okay? Number two is to prepare your brain. They have found, psychologists, scientists have found, neurobiologists have found that your brain does not really like switching tasks. Your brain will naturally have some resistance from going from one task to another task. Knowing that, you know, and the reason why it doesn't enjoy this, because switching from one task to another uses more energy because you have

to go from, you're focusing on doing your taxes and now you're going to write your book. If you go from one thing to another, there's going to be resistance going to writing the book. And so knowing that your brain is going to resist, how can you know that when you're going to go through that resistance, it's not necessarily going to feel good. And actually, it's interesting. Your brain, because it doesn't like to waste energy, doesn't like to use too much energy, it can actually feel bad in your body. So knowing that you're going to switch to a new task, one of the best ways to do it is to buffer it with some type of breathing. One of the things that I always do whenever I'm going from

one intense thing to another intense thing, or just going from being out in my living room and being on a phone call to now I get to sit down and play in podcast episodes, is buffering it with breathing. Really quick, six deep breaths into the nose, out through the mouth, buffer it. And I'm preparing my brain to switch from one thing to another thing. And so how can you prepare knowing that your brain's going to that? Now, here's another key that goes with preparing your brain. The first four to six minutes or so, your brain is going to continue to resist this task switch.

And so one of the things that you can do is, you know, say you've got to sit down. Let's say you're a lawyer and you need to get some contracts done and you sit down on the computer and you need to start typing up some contracts, right? There's going to be resistance to sit down and actually doing that for about four to six minutes on average. So what you want to do is start to kind of dip your toes in to this next action. What do I mean by that? Dipping your toes instead of just diving right in. Knowing that your brain's going to resist for four to six minutes and you're going to be on your computer and you're going to be typing.

Instead of going straight into contracts, what you can do, you do your breathing and then you go and you open up a Word document and literally just type. You don't have to type any contracts. You can say, today I'm wearing a black shirt. Today is a Friday and it is 45 degrees outside and it is sunny. And yesterday it was cold. And today, you could literally type whatever the hell that you want. It's a nice day outside. This morning for breakfast, I had eggs, whatever it is. Literally start to type so that therefore you can work through that resistance period. And after about six minutes, your brain is like, okay, we're here. Let's go ahead and just crank this out. And your brain kind of allows you to relax into it. So that's just a tip, a couple of tips to help you prepare your brain whenever you're going to get

into focusing. Okay. So that's just a piece of it. Next tip is to eliminate as many distractions as you possibly can. If you have, I don't know why people have it. It drives me crazy. If you have email notifications that give you notifications on your computer, take them off. Unless you absolutely have to be married to your email, take it off. Any notifications that pop up on your phones, any notifications pop up on your computers, take all of them off. The only way that I get a notification on my computer or my phone is if you call me. That's it. There's no other way that I can actually know that someone's trying to get ahold of me. So how can you remove as many of those distractions and notifications as you possibly can? If you want to, have a certain

amount of time. From this time to this time, I have my non-distracted time. I'm going to eliminate all distractions. I'm going to turn off all my notifications. I'm going to put my phone away and take all of your distractions that you have and give yourself two hours of just dedicated work and focus. What's another distraction? Another huge distraction that you could have? Here's a huge one. Other people. How can you let other people know that you're going to work? You know, like if you're in an office, put on headphones, close your door. You know, for me, when I have to get really intense stuff done, I go into my fiance's office and I say, hey,

like I'm going to have to work for the next two hours. I'm going to close the door. Unless there's a fire or an emergency, please don't open the door. I need to get some stuff done. And she knows, okay, when the door's shut and when he says that, if I don't need anything, it's not an emergency, don't come in. How can you do the exact same thing?

Because people just coming in to ask you something or to say something can be a massive distraction for you. So how can you find out what your distractions are and start to eliminate those? Because if you want to focus and you have some distractions, your distractions are getting in the way of your focus, which means getting in the way of getting shit done.

So how can you remove as many of those distractions as possible? Okay, next one, simple, stop multitasking. There's actually studies that have come out that have found that multitasking actually makes you dumber. And it actually makes you worse. Like people, I've heard people brag about how great of multitaskers they think they are.

But when you take somebody who is trying to get two different things done and they're multitasked between one and another, one and another, one and another, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then you take another person that's trying to get the exact same task done, but they go from one task and they work on just that one task until it's done. Then they switch to the other task and they work on that task until it's done.

They almost always get it done quicker with more efficiency and with more accuracy when they are focusing on just one thing. And so there's actually no such thing as multitasking. You go from one thing to another thing. You go from one thing to another thing. There is no multitasking. And so what happens is when you go from one thing to another thing over and over and over and over and over again, there's a thing called a cognitive switching penalty, which means that you're actually going to lose some of the efficiency when you go from one thing to another thing. So knowing this, how can you stop multitasking and stop being so, you know, oh, I got to do this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing

knowing that you have to do one thing. It's called single tasking. Just work on one thing and one thing only, and that will help you be more productive. So stop multitasking. Clients demand an instant response, but now more than ever, businesses are spread thin. If you're losing leads from visitors to your website or missing calls that could grow your business, you need to delegate those frontline conversations to the best virtual receptionist service, Smith AI. Smith AI provides businesses with award-winning virtual receptionists who

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Hey, 2022 is here and it is time to grow and become the best version of yourself. And one way to do that is through books. Books have always been and will always be one of the most essential pieces to learning and growing. And that's why Blinkist is so amazing. Although so many books have great content, a lot of them have what I like to call fluff stories. Stories that they put into the book to hammer a point home, but if you've already read the point, you don't need five extra stories about that one point. Well, with Blinkist, you can have all the most important ideas and takeaways from the world's top nonfiction bestsellers, all in 15-minute reads or listens. They call these Blinks, and you can use Blinks to get inspiration,

learn more about the books that you'd like to read next, and broaden your knowledge and get new perspectives. They have amazing books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Atomic Habits, and The Power of Habit. And right now, Blinkist has a special offer for our audience. When you go to Blinkist.com slash mindset, you get a seven-day free trial and 25% off of Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist, spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T, Blinkist.com slash mindset for 25% off and a seven-day free trial, Blinkist.com slash mindset. Next one, have a notepad next to you throughout the entire day, right? Have a pen and paper, nothing else to put on your phone and brain dump. One of the biggest tips that I can give you

to getting shit done and being efficient and having massive amounts of focus is to write down whatever's going through your head. This seems so simple that so many people, when it's really simple, it's usually when people don't do it. They think there needs to be something really complex. If you have anything flowing through your head that is in the way that you're thinking about, you're going from, oh, I got to do this. Oh, I got to do the laundry later. Okay, write down, she has to do the laundry later. Oh my gosh, I have to call her. All right, write down, she has to call that person, right? Because things that are flowing through your brain are taking up energy. And so if I can take those things, put them onto a piece of paper, then I can go back to focusing on what I was focusing on.

And it really, you know, you can also use that to make a plan to actually help you become more focused as well. The way I always explain it is trying to figure things out and let things just continue to run in your head is really abstract. It's like trying to figure out,

if I give you a really complex math problem, would you ever try to figure out a complex math problem in your head if there was a pen and paper next to you? No, you'd always take the pen and paper, you'd write it down and see if you have a better chance of figuring it out with pen and paper. Of course you do. You have a better chance to figure out with pen and paper. Why would you think that any complex problem that comes into your life that's not a math problem can be done in your head? And so if you could have a pen and paper next to you and just write stuff down anytime it pops into your head, it will help you so much with getting things done. And one of the things when I talk about

single tasking and working on one thing and one thing only, well, if you're working on something and an idea pops up or something that wasn't on your to-do list that should be, then instead of switching so that you don't forget that thing, you just write that thing down with pen and paper. Oh my God, that was a really good idea. You write it down, go back to what you're doing. Something comes up, you write it down, you go back to what you're doing. You want to mitigate all of the distractions that you possibly can, all of the ideas, anything that's going to the way of focusing on the one thing that you're doing.

Simple. Cool? So have a notepad and pen in front of you. All right, next one. Put in headphones. I say this all the time. If you've listened to my podcast for a long time, you've heard me say this so many,

the next two things you've heard me say so many times. Sometimes you need to hear something over and over and over and over and over again before you freaking do it. Whenever you're doing anything that requires focus, put on headphones. Put on headphones and play a song. I like to play binarial beats. I like to play a lot of different things, but something with a lot of different types of music is what I used to do. But something that you can listen to over and over and over again that has no words. There is

one song that I listen to in every single time that I need to be focused. I've listened, I listened to it. I probably, no joke, listened to it a few thousand times at this point. And it is literally just a song on YouTube. And it's, I just, you know, go to YouTube and type in Focus Binarial Beats. I just play that one song and it's two hours and 28 minutes long. And I just listen to that song and I listen to that song and listen to that song. And it's almost like I've trained my brain that when I put that song on, we're about to go to work. That's it. Super simple.

And I put on my headphones and they're noise canceling headphones. So therefore I don't hear if my phone rings. I don't hear if the dogs bark. I don't hear if someone knocks on the door. Like I'm so focused and nothing can break that focus. You have to realize the importance. If you don't realize that focus. You have to realize the importance. You don't realize it by now. You have to realize the importance of your focus every single day and how

important it is that when you do get to that focus point, you don't lose it. And so put on headphones so that you cannot be distracted. Put on a song, preferably a long song, without any words. And you can just literally put that on while you're getting stuff done. And usually headphones is a sign for people not to come in and interrupt you as well. So if you work in an office, people see your headphones on, they know that you're in the zone.

What's the next one? You've heard me say it over and over and over again, the Pomodoro technique. It is proven to be one of the best ways to get focused and to get shit done. Super simple, Pomodoro technique. 25 minutes of work on one thing and one thing only, and then you take five minutes off. 25 minutes of work, five minutes off. 25 minutes of work, five minutes off. And what you do is

you use those 25 minutes for one thing and one thing only. That's it. Nothing else. You don't allow yourself to work on two things in that time. You say, hey, okay, I've got 25 minutes to crank out this contract. If we go back to what we were talking before, I've got 25 minutes to crank out this contract. Knowing you probably won't finish the contract in 25 minutes. If you do, cool. Well, now you could take those five minutes off and after those five minutes, go into your next task. But if you don't get it done, well, then the next time that you take your five minutes off and you go back to 25 minutes again

and you start working on the contract and you take five minutes off and you go 25 minutes in. And all you have to do is figure out what are your most important things for the day and then focus on doing those things throughout the day. Like, okay, I've got number one, number two, number three. I'm going to focus on number one all day long until it's done. And then after number one is done, I'm going to focus on two. And, number two, number three. I'm going to focus on number one all day long until it's done. And then after number one is done, I'm going to focus on two.

And after number two is number three. It's really not hard. It's really not simple. It's just, it's really not hard. It really is simple. You just have to make sure that you stay diligent and actually realize that focus is so important. And so what are the seven different things?

Let's go through them one more time so you guys have them. Number one, stay away from your phone as long as you can. Number two, prepare your brain. Number three, eliminate distractions. Number four, stop multitasking. Number five, have a notepad next to you. Number six, put in headphones. Number seven, use the Pomodoro technique.

You have to understand the importance of focus knowing that we are masters of distraction. The example that I always give around focus is this. If you woke up today, right now, and you decided that you wanted to play basketball for the next 16 hours every single day for the next five years, five years from now,

even if you've never played basketball before, you're going to become an incredible basketball player. Maybe not be in the NBA, but you're gonna be really good at basketball in five years, right? Because you simply woke up and dedicated your life to it. And that's what you've been doing every hour for the past five years of your life. You have to realize, we wake up and we immediately go to distraction. How can I distract myself? How can I distract myself? How can I distract myself? We go to our phone. We go to emails. We go to text messages. We go to, what can I eat today? Who am I going phone. We go to emails. We go to text messages.

We go to, what can I eat today? Who am I going to hang out with? What am I going to do after work? And we start to figure out how we can distract ourself every single moment. So the past 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years of your life, you've been mastering the art of distraction. Distraction is the complete opposite of focus.

Knowing that, it's going to take some time and some diligence to become more focused. But if you wake up every single day and you say, okay, I know I want to distract myself. The human brain wants to distract itself. It wants to go to your cell phone. It wants to go to your emails. It wants to go to all that stuff. We've got to realize if it wants to go to those, and I've trained myself to go to those things for years unintentionally, what do I need to do to untrain myself and to make sure I stay focused as much as possible? And if you were to decide to wake up and play basketball for the next five years, 16 hours a day, and five years are going to be good, and five months you're going to be good, what if you just woke up and instead of going to distraction, you decided to go to focus?

And you became more and more focused every single day because you became diligent with these seven keys to becoming focused. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it, RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode, making sure mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.