Finding Focus: Learning To Tame My Squirrel Brain

Have you ever found yourself watching a movie, but you’re also on your phone organising Pinterest boards when you’re supposed to be spending time with your family? Or been watching a YouTube video in one tab while interacting on social media, or trying to write something in another? Or had one social media site open on your phone while scrolling another one on your computer? I’ve been guilty of all these things. Maybe you have too. I flit from one thing to another constantly. Even when I want to be completely focused on something important, like my novel, my mind is constantly asking ‘but what’s happening on Twitter?’ I can’t seem to keep my mind on one thing while I’m working and concentrate on just that. I have a bit of a squirrel brain.

I can’t focus my mind on one thing, because there are a host of others clamouring for my attention. I like to pretend I’m multitasking, achieving good work a multitude of projects, but in the end, I’m achieving nothing in any of the tasks I’m attempting. Often I can’t find enough focus to sit still and work on something for more than a few minutes. And this is difficult. As a creative person who works from home, I value my time. I value every minute I have available to pour into my creative endeavours. So when I waste those precious hours mindlessly jumping from one tab to another, it’s frustrating.

It’s so frustrating that I’ve started taking active steps to train myself how to focus on one task at a time. It’s not easy, and I do genuinely want to keep doing other things the whole time. Even while I’m writing this, I’m wondering who’s posted what on Twitter and whether I should just click over there and check. It’s one click. That couldn’t possibly hurt, right? I’ll check Twitter and then I can be satisfied and concentrate better. Except I won’t. Because there are always notifications to read. And jumping back and forth keeps pulling my mind from its quiet place of work, which makes it harder and harder to get back into a creative mindset. It’s a battle. But I have some new strategies to fight with.

Putting Away My Phone

Like most people I’m sure, a lot of my distractions come from my phone. I rarely text anyone, but I am constantly checking Twitter, my emails, or Pinterest. I hop from playing a meaningless phone game to looking a movie up on IMBD because I suddenly couldn’t remember whether a certain actor was in it. When I’m watching tv, I’m messing around on my phone. So I’ve taken to closing my phone in a drawer where I can’t see it while I’m working, and leaving it in another room when I’m spending the evening with my family so that my full attention can be fixed on whatever I’m doing in that moment.

Fullscreening My Work AND My Play

I’ve taken to fullscreening my work as often as I can. I usually write in this cool online program called 4thewords, which encourages use of fullscreen mode. Scrivener also has this feature. It means that when I’m working, the only thing I can see is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing in that moment. I can’t see the notification icon on tabs, or be distracted by the other work I have queued up to do. There’s just the thing I’m working right now. I do the same with my recreation as well. I play games in fullscreen mode. I fullscreen my YouTube videos. I try and make my onscreen environment as distraction free as possible. Even just removing the visibility of tabs, whether they’re social media or not, means that I’m not as tempted to go surfing the web.

Closing Non-Essential Tabs and Programs

I am awful when it comes to closing things. I always have a dozen tabs open, and four or five programs at any one time, as well as multiple Word documents and so much more. My computer is always so cluttered by open projects and thoughts. I’ve taken to trying to close down anything I’m not currently working on so that I’m not as tempted to jump from one work task to another. It might seem like I’m getting lots done, but usually I’m avoiding putting in the hard work on a single project by hopping around and not finishing anything. Closing down anything I’m not working on at that very moment is like closing down those thought trains in my mind. It frees me up to concentrate on a single task.

Playing Background Music

This one might seem a little odd for a highly distracted person like me, but it actually works really well. I like to turn a playlist of soft, lyric free music on in the background while I’m working. Spotify has some great ones that I use regularly, and there are loads of great movie soundtracks that also do an excellent job. It fills the empty space, and helps me tune out intrusive thoughts. It also isolates me from the rest of the world for a bit, putting me into my own little bubble so that I can more easily drop into a focused headspace where I can get good work done.

Using Pomodoro and Scheduling Breaks

The pomodoro method, for anyone who hasn’t heard of it before, is a strategy where you work for a certain period of time, the most common being 25 minutes, and then take a 5 minute break. The chunks of time are just long enough for you to focus in without being too frustratingly long for a squirrel brain like mine, and you get to give your brain a break. Those 5 minutes are great for indulging that need to check your notifications or answer messages or whatever it is you’ve been dying to do. It’s like a reward for being good and focused during the whole work session. I also like to remind myself to get up and move around for a few minutes, get the blood flowing again and take a couple of moments away from the screen to reset myself.

I’m still working on finding focus and taming my squirrel brain. In a world where multitasking is praised and we’re constantly bombarded by notifications, social interactions, and information, focusing on a single task for any length of time is becoming harder and harder to do. I for one am trying to take a step back, block out these interruptions and distractions and learn to focus on what is truly important in the moment. I won’t remember what those notifications were tomorrow, but I will remember if I was able to edit those chapters or write that blog post. And those are the things that really matter to me.

I want to hear from you. Do you ever struggle to find focus? What are some of your strategies for blocking out distractions and getting work done? Let’s chat in the comments down below!

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