7 Proven Ways to Stay Focused at Work

In a world filled with instant access to information, coworkers and friends, finishing a solid eight hours of work seems nearly impossible. Avoiding distractions, however, is not a Herculean task. Just like getting to the gym each day, staying focused while at work is a matter of building good habits.

Set clear goals: Instead of saying, “I’m going to work a solid eight hours every day,” make a list of your top priorities for the week. This helps you avoid reacting to every distraction that comes up. Review your list each morning and decide—realistically—what tasks you can accomplish that day. Be concrete: “I’m going to finish steps 1-3 of the project by noon.”

Work in 60-90-minute blocks: As we work, our alertness drops off, increasing the lure of distractions. Set a timer and take a break at the end of each cycle. Reset your focus by listening to music for a few minutes, taking a short walk, or going for lunch.

Turn off the world: Let’s face it, the world is a distracting place. Avoid temptation by severing all ties. This includes email, office phones, cell phones and your coworkers. This might require finding a quiet place away from your office to work—such as booking a conference room or hiding out in your office. If you need to, set up a system for urgent messages to reach you. This doesn’t include where to go for happy hour.

Schedule distractions: Distractions are not all bad, but you need to make them work for you. Use them as reward for a solid chunk of work. Start out with distractions that are good for you, such as working out or calling your friends. If Facebook and Twitter are your thing, block off time in your schedule to post or browse other people's updates, but stick to your schedule. Remember, you control the distractions.

Practice not being distracted: Meditation is a great way to do this because it’s just you and your thoughts. If that’s not your thing, practice single-tasking throughout your day. At lunch, just eat. Don’t read the newspaper or check your email at the same time. In meetings, don’t doodle in your notebook or play with your phone.
 
Pay attention to yourself: Start to notice when and how you get distracted. What thoughts happen just before that? Are you tired, hungry, or bored? As you learn what triggers your distractions, you can head them off before you slip into an hour-long IM chat.

Use technology to your advantage: From blocking out distracting websites to tracking how much time you spend surfing the web, many apps can actually help you stay focused. Once you identify what your habits are, pick one that will help you meet your goals, but don’t let these become distractions in themselves.

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Question: What strategies do you consider effective when it comes to focusing and paying close attention?

5 Things You Must Do To Organize Your Day For Success

Successful people are known to be great at practicing tips on time management. Chances are, if you want to be an extremely successful professional at your chosen field, you should also learn how to organize your day effectively.

So now, you’re excited.
You’re pumped.

You can’t wait to get started and organize your day right away. There’s a tiny problem, though: Where should you start? With all the tips, techniques, and tricks scattered all over the Internet, which tips are really going to be effective and convenient for you to adapt? With all the stress and the expectations during your day, how can you even get started?
The first thing that you should take note of is the definition of time. Simply put, time is an idea that’s relative, depending on how you define it. You may think that one hour spent on writing an article is a luxury, while other writers believe that you would need to spend at least two hours to do so. You may think that fifteen minutes spent on brainstorming your ideas is already enough, while some entrepreneurs even spend three days just to brainstorm. Also, you may believe that spending time with your loved ones should be done everyday, while some people simply think it’s a waste of time!
You see, time is subjective. Your concept of time is different from other people’s idea of it. Therefore, everything that you read and learn about time management is irrelevant if you don’t believe that time needs to be managed. If you think that your time is worthless, if you’d rather watch TV all day than work on your personal growth, or if you’d rather spend all day in bed sleeping instead of trying to make a change in your life, organizing your day for success is not the answer. Focus on being inspired and pursuing your passion first.
If you think that your time is valuable, on the other hand, here are five tips to help you organize it successfully:

1. Plan your day the night before.

Before going to sleep, make sure that you’re going to start your day with a purpose. Whip up a journal or a planner and put your action plans for the next day in there.
To give you a guideline, you should have at least four plans for everyday: one should be work-related, one should be for a personal activity like an errand, and two should be for accomplishing your life dreams.

2. Schedule for interruptions.

Get frustration out of the picture by setting up time allowances in your plan. If you say that you’re going to write an article from 08:00 to 08:45 and then you’re going to write a blog post from 08:46 to 09:30, you’re just setting yourself up for trouble!
Expect that not everything will go as planned. You will only be able to organize your day successfully if you plan for interruptions.

3. Start your day with accomplishing something big.

When eating a meal, you start eating the food that you don’t like first so that you can focus on enjoying the rest of the meal, right? The same goes for your day. If you have a big thing that you need to accomplish, do it first.
This way, even if you don’t accomplish anything else, you can still say that you did something productive at least.

4. Use a time-tracking application to help you stay on track.

Of course you can still check on Facebook and Twitter — you just need to plan for it and track your time doing these activities so that you won’t get distracted.
Toggl, SlimTimer, and RescueTime are nice tools to help you get started.

5. Accept the fact that you’re not going to be able to do it all in one day.

You’re not Superman (or are you…?) so you can’t do everything in one day. Instead of working on a big project in one day and cramming it, arrange milestones instead. Don’t get frustrated if you weren’t able to finish everything you’ve planned.
Remember, you still have next time.
We hope that by that time, you’ll be wise enough to practice what you’ve read in this article and organize your day right.
Everyone seems to complain about being busy nowadays.

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Question: How do you organize your day for optimum performance?  

16 Things Successful People Do On Monday Mornings

Monday mornings are the most critical time of the workweek — they set the stage for the day and week ahead.

"Because you've stepped away for a couple of days, these back-to-work mornings are the most memorable for the rest of the week," says Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job." 
"They influence your mindset in a positive or negative way, depending on what actions you decide to take," Taylor says.
Most successful people are keenly aware of the typical Monday-morning workplace dynamic of unanticipated events, overflow of communications, and general chaos. "But after weathering hundreds of them, they realize they must gain control and stay upbeat," Taylor explains. "They take extra steps to compensate for this busy time of the week, and apply their best management skills to ensure that the day unfolds as smoothly as possible."
Here are 16 things successful people do on Monday mornings:

1. They wake up early. Successful people go to sleep at a decent hour on Sunday night, get a good night's sleep, and wake up early Monday morning.
"When the alarm goes off and the voice tells you that you went to bed far too late to get up this early, or that five more minutes won't hurt, DON'T LISTEN!" writes Ciara Conlon for Lifehack. "When you are in charge of the inner voice, there will be no stopping you."

2. They exercise. Working out gets your circulation going and helps you stay alert, putting you at an advantage for a productive week ahead. "You'll get your endorphin rush, which will help your mood, too," Taylor says.

3. They eat a healthy breakfast. On Monday morning, you want to handle everything you have control over. Eating breakfast is one of those things. "You don't want to be staring at the clock, awaiting lunch time as your stomach growls at morning meetings," she says.


4. They arrive early. Do not succumb to the snooze button. "Commutes are bad on Monday, so beat the odds," Taylor says. Plus, getting in earlier than others will help make Monday morning seem more like the afternoon because you'll have had a chance to breathe before responding to the barrage of people and issues. "Being an early bird will give you some wiggle room for the unexpected at work, not to mention any important personal matters that may arise," she says.

5. They clear their desk and desktop. "Hopefully you already did this before you left on Friday. But if you didn't, get this out of the way, or you might add to Monday stresses in a sea of disorganization," Taylor says. Organize and prioritize your files. Put aside unimportant paperwork and keep critical files easily accessible. You want to be prepared when you, your boss, or colleagues need something at the last minute.

6. They carve out time for unexpected projects and tasks. Successful individuals expect the unexpected on Monday, she says. "Your boss, team members, or staff may have remembered some loose ends over the weekend, so you're wise to build in some extra down time on Monday morning."

7. They greet their team and boss. This is important to do first thing every morning to keep morale high, but on Monday it's particularly valuable, as your team needs a special boost. "Ideally, you'll spend an few extra minutes with your colleagues on Monday mornings. It reinforces a sense of purpose and community for everyone, including you," Taylor explains.



8. They update their to-do list and goals. "Get yourself current on priorities and tasks," Taylor suggests. Then set five to eight goals for the week.
"Accomplished professionals have several goals in mind for the day and week," she says. "They know that if all goals aren't achieved, they can take pride in accomplishing most of them, and there's next week to achieve additional objectives."

9. They visualize the week's successes. By envisioning the positive outcomes of various projects at hand, you can work backward and determine the necessary steps to get your desired results.

10. They screen emails for urgent requests. You can sink into email oblivion if you don't scan your inbox for urgency, Taylor says. "Star emails that are priorities and think quality, not quantity."

11. They tackle the tough challenges first. The least desirable but critical projects are easy to put off, but your energy is stronger in the morning, so that's the ideal time to confront the most difficult assignments.

12. They make an extra effort to smile. "It might be the last thing on your mind, but overcompensating for the pressure cooker morning will help you get through it," she says. You may well stand out in the crowd, but your smile will likely be contagious, helping both you and team members relax.



13. They add a "blanket of humanity" to their emails. It's tempting to power through all your emails in the most efficient way on Monday mornings. But before you hit send, read them over to ensure that they're friendly and clear. "Put yourself in the recipient's shoes. It's relatively easy to appear curt when you're in a hurry, along with the impersonal nature of emails and texts. You want to mitigate false starts and misinterpretations," Taylor says. One way to do this: Start the email by saying "Hi" and "I hope you had a great weekend."

14. They're able to say no. "On Monday mornings there will be many distractions — from people, to emails, to calls, meetings, offers for meeting in the break room, and so forth," Taylor explains. "Successful people can diplomatically and politely say no to colleagues by offering to engage at a later time."
If your boss needs you, that is clearly an exception. However, if you have crucial calls to make or meetings to attend, give your boss the heads-up. "It's stressful to be a people pleaser, particularly on Monday mornings. Generally, no one ends up being pleased, as you can't do your best work with conflicting priorities."

15. They stay focused. Successful people don't dwell on any challenging events that occurred over the weekend, or other frivolous thoughts. "Compartmentalize by putting them in a separate 'box' as you start your week," she says.

16. They remember that there is Tuesday. "In all the chaos it's easy to believe that the world will cave if you don't solve all Monday's problems on Monday," she says. "But when the dust settles at the end of the day, you may realize that certain tasks could have waited." Sometimes you obtain more information over time that enhances your decision-making. Or you may find that certain problems you're pondering will resolve themselves.

Monday morning can challenge even the most industrious, successful business leaders. "But if you compensate for all the anticipated distraction and intensity by remembering to focus, plan, and stay calm, you won't relive Monday all over again on Tuesday".

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5 Reasons You Are Procrastinating on Your Dreams

Why Do You Make Excuses Instead of Acting on Your Goals?

I'm very sure we all have a dream!

What that big goal that you want to accomplish in life?
However, chances are that you haven’t actually started working on it.
You are quick with reasons (excuses) as to why you haven’t pursued it.
You dream about it. You think about it. So, why aren’t you doing it?

Procrastinating is Easy

Some people spend their entire lives putting off their dreams.
They talk about them endlessly, but they never take action.
They never start. And thus, are doomed to never accomplish their goals.
Whatever your dream, you have to get up off the couch and do the work.

“Procrastinating on your dreams is easy. Doing the work is hard.”

Here are 5 Reasons You are Procrastinating on Your Dreams:

1. You Don’t Have the Time – It’s more accurate to say you don’t make the time. Making your dreams a reality requires the investment of time. That means you’ll have to take the time from other activities in your life to put it into your goals.
2. You Don’t Know Where to Start – In other words, you don’t have a plan. One easy way to overcome this obstacle is to start an outline of the tasks required to reach your goal. Don’t overthink this. A simple list of the tasks is all you need.
3. You Aren’t Sure How to Do It – Lack of information or knowledge used to be an easy excuse for procrastination. However, between the Internet and YouTube you can learn how to do almost any task in a few minutes, or at least learn enough information about what will be required.
4. You Are Too Comfortable – Is your procrastination related to being too comfortable? After all it is easier to stick with the status quo than do the hard work to get to a better place. You might need to make a drastic change to get yourself out of your comfort zone.
5. You Lack Motivation – What will it take to motivate you to get up and act? One tactic is to write out a vision of how things will change if you accomplish your dream. Spell out the positive impacts on your life and circumstances. Having a clear vision of those benefits can be a powerful source of motivation.

Take Action Instead of Making Excuses

Making excuses for not pursuing your dreams is easy. In fact, you probably spend more time making the excuses than doing the tough work required to make your big goals a reality.
Yet, if you don’t get past procrastination and into action you will never see progress.
It doesn’t have to be a big step. In fact, most big goal are accomplished through the repetition of many small actions.
What small step can you take today to overcome your procrastination, and take a step closer to your dreams?
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Being On Time Vs Being In Time - See the difference

Are you constantly late to your work, meetings, occasions or other events?
Always the one that others expect to be late?
No matter how hard you try to be “on time,” you end up showing up just after the start time.
What does it take to arrive on time to your appointments?

Stop Trying to Be “On Time”

When was the last time you were “on time” for a meeting?
Actually, what does that mean, “On time?”
To many, it means you walk in the door at the start time of the appointed meeting, arriving in a confused and hurried mess. Then, taking several minutes to compose yourself and getting ready to begin.

“Arriving 10 minutes early is In time. Showing up at the start time means you are on time and it also means you're already late.”

So, how do you break the stressful cycle of rushing from one appointment to the next, always arriving a few minutes behind schedule?
The trick is… stop trying to be on time.
Rather, you need to strive to be in time or early.
This should be each and every time, not just when you feel the need.
This means you will need to change your approach…

• You will have to leave earlier.
• You must avoid back-to-back meetings. (Unless you are going to end one early.)
• You have to allow extra time for travel (even down the hall) for unforeseen delays.
• You have to expect to arrive 10 minutes before the start time of an obligation.

Don’t Be Late, Be Early

Get to your meetings early today.
Make your goal to be 10 minutes early to your appointments and meetings.
It will give you a new perspective… and you won’t be late either.

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3 Reasons You Should Manage Your Time Like You manage Your Money

 In life and business, Time and Money always have a direct relationship, according to a research on the "Time Value Of Money", which states that "Time is Money, and the value of Money changes over a period of Time"

What if you managed your time as closely as you managed your money? Think about it. What would you do if a person came up to you and asked for N500? Would you give it without a thought?
What if the same person came up and asked for 500 seconds (about 8.5 minutes)? Or 500 minutes (about 8 hours)? Chances are you wouldn’t even flinch. We do it all the time. “Just a minute?” and the next thing we know, we’ve spent 20 minutes listening to someone complain.
We wouldn’t hand over our cash on a whim, so why are we so quick to give away our valuable time?

Spend Your Time Wisely

We often have no real concept of time in a way that suggests we can control it. We can set boundaries that honor how we use our time, and we can use our time – just like we use our money – to create more freedom in our lives.
Here are the three biggest reasons why we need to manage our time like we manage our money:

1) The time we have in a day is a precious commodity.
Yep – even more precious than the money we have in the bank. Readily giving up our time to anyone who asks, without consideration, is a sloppy time management practice. It’s like throwing money out with the trash.
2) Your time and how you spend it is also a direct reflection of your self-worth.
As you grow in business, or even as an employee in the company, you begin to value your time and your services more. If you don’t begin to charge what your time is worth, you are slowly dishonoring your time – and there it goes, ticking away again.

3) How you value your time shows up in your service to your clients.
Picture any bargain store. They’ve got low, low prices but the service and selection to match. If you shopped in a higher-end boutique, you might pay a little bit more but you’re more likely to get what you want, and have someone trained in customer service assist you too. The same principle applies to your time. If you’re giving it away for free, what you offer people is going to be a lower level of brilliance than if you saved your time for fewer clients. And we haven’t even touched on your own personal time, which you NEED in order to provide that high quality of service you set out to offer!

Time is Money. Invest Well.

Pay attention to where you spend your time. Where you are giving away your time?
You value your money and invest it wisely, so why not do the same with your time?
How will you spend your 100,000 “Time Naira” today?


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How To Start Your Week With Your Battery Strength Fully Charged

Most people hate starting their week. (And thus, Monday gets a bad rap.)

Many come back to work dragging worse than when they left Friday afternoon.
Are you one of those individuals that dreads restarting the work week?
What would it take to start the week fully charged?

Starting on Empty

Do you come back from your weekend needing another weekend to recover?
“How to start the week” is one of the most popular questions that I am asked.
Ironically, much of the “starting the week” stress is self-inflicted.
It is either due to not being prepared or irresponsible behavior over the weekend.

“If you start your week with nothing in your tank…
then it is bound to be a rough start.”

Ever start your day and realize that you forgot to plug-in your phone the night before?
Unfortunately, many people do this with their body.
And then they wonder why Mondays are so tough.

Start Fully Charged

If you want to start your week right, you need to take steps to take care of yourself and your obligations.
Here are 10 Ways to Start the Week with Your Batteries Fully Charged:

1. Get Enough Rest – Many people claim they need a weekend to recover from the work week. However, when they get there, they end up getting less sleep than during the week. Have the discipline to get the rest you need. If your tank is empty when you walk in the door Monday, it’s going to be a rough week.
2. Know Where You Are Going – Starting your week without reviewing your calendar is like driving your car with a blindfold, you are going to hit something. Know where you are going before the week starts. Review your calendar in advance.
3. Know What You Have to Do – Your to-do list is just as important. If you are unaware of what you have to do and when it is due, you are setting yourself up for a fall. Look at your list before you leave the house. You just might remind yourself of something you need to be ready for.
4. A Good Finish, Allows a Good Start – Ever come back to a project that you left in disarray? It’s a mess. Trying to figure out where you were and where everything goes. Make sure you finish the previous week right. Clean up before you leave the office and tie up loose ends. That way, you won’t walk into a mess upon your return.
5. Do Your Homework – Many people take the weekend “off” as literal. Meaning they don’t do anything to prepare for the next week. However, you have to do your homework. If you have a big presentation, prepare for it. If you have an assignment that is due, finish it. Just because you aren’t in school doesn’t mean you don’t have homework.
6. Workout – Want to start you week full of energy? Start it with a workout. Some fear that this will wear them out before they get to work. Quite the contrary. It will pump you up. And fill you with confidence.
7. Start Early – It’s true, the early bird gets the worm. Opportunity favors the early. If you have to pick one day a week to get an early start, Monday would be the day. Arriving at the office before the rush will let you get a head start.
8. Motivate Yourself – Need some inspiration to start your week? Read something motivational. I keep several of my motivational books, quotes, and even video clips nearby, in case I need that extra push to go out and attack the world.
9. Start the Work – A great way to start your week fully amped up is to finish something early. Do an important task before the week even wakes up Monday morning. (See #7)
10. Positive Attitude – Bring your best attitude to the new week. Being positive can overcome many of the week’s obstacles. Your attitude defines your reality more than you think.

Charge Your Batteries

Don’t start your week on empty.Get the rest. Do the homework. And get motivated.
Start your week fully charged.

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Question: Do you start your week fully charged?