A symptom of our time is the lack of organization and concentration that we have for work.
Except for certain occupations, much of it is common to find ourselves suddenly distracted, doing something that we should not be doing, and perhaps we do not even remember how it was that we deviated from what we were doing initially.
We see the clock and we regret that we have been wandering on social networks, on the Internet, on entertainment sites, on YouTube videos, etc. for 15, 20 minutes.
This could somehow be considered natural, for the human mind has one of its natural movements in rambling.
No one ever thinks a single thing, but at the same time that we have an idea in parallel, others arise, at the same time that we are experiencing the world (listening to a song, looking around us, perceiving a smell or a tactile sensation, making an idea of this, etc.).
In this sense, our mind has been compared to a hive, always active, always weaving neural links, always moving. The challenge, then, is rather to find a way to direct that quality toward a specific purpose.
Here are some steps to organize your mind:
Perform tasks that keep you stimulated
A job can be very simple or very difficult: if it is simple, you will probably get bored soon; If it is difficult, perhaps the anguish of having to do it will outweigh the action of doing it. Hence, Bradberry advises to consciously choose tasks that are challenging in the right measure, according to our abilities, to stay stimulated and at the same distance from boredom and stress.
Don’t let emotions dominate you
There are times when it is not easy to dissociate the emotions from professional life; However, in order to carry out a job, it is necessary not to ignore them, but to do everything possible so that they do not negatively impact what we do. According to Bradberry, the best way to develop this ability is, initially, to know and recognize ourselves as emotional beings, to accept that we feel, that we have sentimental reactions, that this will not change; In this sense, the method is simple: once we notice that we are being assaulted by an emotion, Bradberry advises identifying it and answering to ourselves what we are feeling and why.
Likewise, the columnist assures that associating emotions with words makes them “more tangible and less mysterious”, with which it is also possible to manage them better so as not to interfere with our work.
The 20 minute barrier
In our time, attention is one of the least common qualities. Perhaps like no other time, in ours thousands of people compete to attract and retain the attention of others, thus generating a confusing network of stimuli in which we are trapped daily and sometimes even lost. According to Bradberry, our mind requires between 15 and 20 minutes to enter a state of almost complete concentration on a single task, hence his recommendation in this case is to get away from any possible distraction (social networks, smartphone, television, etc.) during the first 20 minutes from the moment we start a job in which we want to give our full attention.
Rest
As exciting as the work you are in is, both the body and the mind are fatigued. Bradberry cites studies that recommend working uninterrupted 52 minutes and after this take a short break of 17 minutes, in a cycle that can be repeated as much as possible and which seems to be one of the most productive known.
Don’t hesitate to reorganize
After the short break, you may find when you return to work that you cannot continue where you left off or that you may no longer be able to concentrate as before. According to Bradberry this is more or less normal, so he suggests not being afraid to make a change, reorganizing ideas or thoughts, and perhaps even redoing the path from the start.
