Introduction

Thank you for downloading this guide.

You’re taking the first step towards better focus and more mental clarity.

Most people today aren’t able to focus on one thing for more than a few
minutes, or even seconds… Through our devices, too many to-do’s, or
an abundance of addictive distractions our focus has become shattered.

This makes life harder than it needs to be. Novelty Bias - when you
switch tasks, you’re rewarded with a dopamine hit - made us train our
brain to pursue shallow, meaningless work instead of deep work.

Our mind drifts off and we can’t resist the temptations that are coming
up. Tasks that could be done in minutes, take hours. We feel like we’ve
been busy the whole day but the actual results are disappointing.

In today’s world attention has become a currency, and everybody's

competing for it. Undivided attention is so rare, that mastering focus
becomes an unfair advantage.

Inside this guide you’ll find the 5 best tips to quickly rebuild your focus:

1. Set intentions

First you have to set a clear intention on what you want to do and that
you want to give it your focus.

This might sound obvious but research by one of the foremost experts in
the field of intention Peter Gollwitzer has shown that setting an intention
dramatically increases chances of success. The key here is to make it
specific.

In a study participants were asked to set an intention to achieve a

difficult goal during Christmas break. 62% of students who set a specific
intention reached their goal, while only 22% of participants with vague
intentions did.

What’s important: Even those with vague intentions had a 20%-30%

higher chance of success than those with no intentions.

How to set specific intentions?

Here are some example to go from vague -> to specific:

“Go to bed early” -> “Set a timer for 9pm and turn off all screens when it
goes off to prepare for sleep.”

“Stop working after the workday is over” -> “Set a timer for 4pm and then
put my phone in airplane mode and my laptop in the drawer”

“Create content” -> “Write 1 thread about focus and 25 tweets”

2. Create a plan

Has it ever happened to you that you sat down to get to work but you
didn’t really know what to focus on?

Everything feels like a priority and the mere task of deciding what to do
stresses you out.

And what is the default human reaction to stress?

Distraction.

And before you know it you’re scrolling twitter or find yourself 17 min.
deep in a Youtube video you never planned to watch.

I bet you feel like you can’t get ahead of all the tasks you have to
accomplish. Like you’ve been pulled out so far into the ocean of to-do’s,
that you can never reach the shore accomplishment-wise.
This simple task & time-management system will take you from surviving
to thriving:

- write down all the task you have to do

- rank your tasks based on priority
- get a notebook or a piece of paper (I like to do things physical but
you can also use your calendar app for this)
- draw a vertical line in the middle of the page and two horizontal
lines to divide your page into 6 pieces
- assign a day to each box (sunday is off)
- fill the box for each day with max. 3 priorities

The end result should look like this:

Creating a plan like this will free up “mental bandwidth” because you
wrote down all the tasks that were flying around in your mind.

It organizes your tasks in a visual way so you can easily manage them
and don’t have to rely on your memory.

And most importantly it allows you to focus on what matters instead of

getting drowned in non-essentials.

With this plan you will know what to do and when to do it.

You will no longer procrastinate or randomly do the easiest or most

urgent task you can think of only to be disappointed later because you
know you could’ve done better.

You’ll no longer be busy all day without getting results, instead you know
what to work on and will have more free time to do something else.

3. Handle distractions

We continually seek novel stimuli because it makes us feel more

productive - we’re doing “more” at the moment. But being busy doesn’t
get results, getting things done does.

Even the slightest resistance to a task can send the brain hunting for a
distraction. And most of the time there are plenty of distractions right at
our fingertips.

Here’s 2 things we need to do:

1. Identify distractions:

When you are interrupted, reflect on what caused the interruption. Take
note of it so you can avoid it in the future. Which brings me to…

2. Eliminate distractions:
 - Put your phone in another room.
- Tidy up your room and workspace.
- Close all the tabs you aren’t using (bookmark if you need them
later).
- Use noise canceling headphones and listen to non-vocal music.
- Remove everything else that distracts you or make the distance to
it as far as possible.

Let your environment support your focus by removing as many

distractions as possible.

3. Use the open-loop-system

What are open loops?

All the little tasks that come up that you have to do to keep things
running. They can distract you from your work but unlike the other
distractions we can’t simply dismiss them.

Examples of open loops:

- Calling the bank

- Answering E-Mails
- Follow-ups with customers

Open loops are like open tabs in your brain.

When you have too many open tabs your brain runs out of processing
power.

You’ll think less clearly, your focus is distorted and you don’t have
enough energy to perform your best.

The open-loop-system solves this problem:

1) Create an “Open Loops” page in the note’s app on your phone or

download an app like todoist.
2) When open loops come up during the day, IMMEDIATELY write them
down to the Open Loops page.

3) Schedule some time every day to close all your open loops. Set a
timer for 30-60min and knock off all tasks from the open loops page as
fast as you can.

This system makes sure you don’t waste your day with “busy work” and
frees up your mind to do deep work where your focus is needed.

4. Meditate
How can doing nothing for a few minutes a day help you to get more
work done?

Let me explain…

Meditation is the most powerful habit you can build. It does not only
make you calmer and happier, it also dramatically increases your focus
and work output.

Distractions are the biggest threat to your focus. And meditation literally
trains you to resist distractions.

Here’s how to get started:

Sit down in a quiet place and set a timer for 2-10min. (start small and
work your way up).

Close your eyes or plant your gaze on the ground around a body length
away in front of you.

Start breathing deep into your stomach.

While you take a breath in, become aware that you are breathing in.

While you are breathing out, become aware that you are breathing out.

You can even say in your mind while breathing: „breathing in, I calm my
body“ - „breathing out, I plant a smile“.
Or you can simply say „in“ - „out“. You don’t say this out loud but only in
your mind.

Do this until the timer goes off.

You’ll notice that your mind wanders away from your breath. Every time
it does so, kindly bring your attention back.

And don’t worry when it feels uncomfortable at first. You’re training your
mind and with practice it becomes easier.

If you practice regularly you will not only naturally be more focused
during your day, you’ll also be able to resist temptations and distractions
better - after all that’s what you’re practicing every time you bring your
awareness back to your breath.

There are countless other forms of meditation you can try but the one
above is the simplest and easiest.

If you want to get a deep dive into meditation, get step by step
instruction and learn all the meditation techniques I personally use you
can check out my course Modern Meditation.

5. Practice Focus
Tell me this…

Would you expect to be able to play for the Los Angeles Lakers if you’ve
never practiced basketball?

Probably not. You wouldn’t even expect to have a decent throw if you
never practiced.

Yet, when it comes to concentration most people wonder why they can’t
do it, even though they never practiced.

Even worse…

They practice distraction.

An Asurion study showed that Americans check their phone a whopping
358 times a day!

That’s crazy numbers…

And while I don’t believe yours to be so high, let's be honest with

ourselves here for a second…

How are you spending your day?

How much of that time is spent in distraction?

Watching Youtube, scrolling your phone or checking your emails…

Truth is, most of us practice a whole lot of distraction every day.

The law of practice says: what you do more of you will get better at.

So if we want better focus we need to do less distraction and more

focus.

One of the first things I usually recommend people is to resist pulling out
their phone while waiting for little things, such as waiting in line at the
grocery store, or sitting on the porcelain throne.

You can’t focus if you’re stimulated 24/7. The less stimulation you need
the better you can focus.

Here are some questions you can use to check in on yourself during the
day:

- How do I feel?
- Was my mind wandering?
- Am I working on autopilot, or am I focusing on something that was
set with intention?
- What’s the most consequential thing I could be doing right now,
and am I doing it?

You can either set an hourly timer to remind yourself to ask yourself
these questions or you can set cues such as watching in the bathroom
mirror, getting another cup of green tea or stopping at a redlight.
In the beginning I recommend using a timer, so you don’t forget it. With
practice you’ll get better at this and can start relying on cues.

You’ve spent enough time practicing distraction, if you’re ready for high
levels of concentration, mental clarity and a sense of calm determination
it’s time to start to practice focus.

Conclusion

Implement these tips daily and you’ll soon reach unknown levels of
focus.

You’ll work faster, get better results and have more free time.

You’ll be proud of yourself instead of feeling unsatisfied and guilty.

And you’ll be more present in your day to day life and your relationships.

Conversations become much more intimate when you focus all your
attention on the other person instead of being distracted by your phone
or thoughts.

So please, don’t read through this information only to get a hit of

dopamine and forget about it.

Take this guide seriously and put it into practice and reap the rewards of
unwavering focus.

Thank you for reading!

Takezo