5 Ways to Increase Focus at Work

Life is full of distractions and, unfortunately, those distractions don’t leave us once we enter out place of employment. From the internet, to our mobile phones, and co-worker’s gossip, we have plenty of opportunities to find ourselves struggling to stay attentive to the task at hand.

Consider implementing the following five ways to remain focused while on the job.

Keep a healthy snack close at hand. Hunger can be a big distraction and when we try to deal with our hunger by eating salty or sugary snacks, we’ll find ourselves with decreased energy and we’ll be craving those unhealthy treats for much of the day. Bring in healthy treats to keep nearby, such as nuts, dried fruit, bananas, carrots and celery, or a protein-filled smoothie. You’ll avoid getting away from your desk to grab the chips in the vending machine while finding yourself with increased energy and focus.

Work for specific amounts of time on one project. Have a plan to your day and spend a dedicated amount of time, ideally about 45 minutes, working on one project. Avoid the temptation to multitask and bring brief, focused attention to one job. You’ll find that you’ve accomplish more in shorter bursts of time than spending several distracted hours on a project. Following your 45 minutes of dedicated work give yourself a quick break as a reward.

Take a walk. A great reward after your successful 45 minutes of dedicated work is a brisk walk around the office building. Getting outdoors will help you regain focus, increase your energy levels, and can help stimulate new ideas that can resolve a problem or issue you’re having with your project.

Seek out a private work space. In some instances, we might need more privacy, especially if you work in a cubicle with a lot of co-workers nearby. Find an empty conference room that you can utilize for some dedicated work and take advantage of it or locate a quiet corner with a desk. Sometimes a change in scenery can allow us to be more focused.

Identify your specific distractions and make a plan. Think through the situations you find most distracting, from gossiping with co-workers around the coffee machine to browsing Amazon when you should be getting some work done and develop a specific plan to deal with them. It might be as simple as rewarding yourself after focused work time with a visit to the coffee machine or a brief time of online browsing.

A few small tweaks to our work practices can enable us to be more focused, more productive, and more joyful on the job.

5 Work Habits to Support Your Personal Life

Our habits contribute significantly to our success in life and in our career. To be successful we need to develop the right habits that support who we want to be and the accomplishments we want to achieve.

Last week we discussed personal habits that can support you in your career. Today we look at those work habits you've developed and how they can be beneficial to your personal life.

Organization. The ability to remain organized amid complexity, chaos, and competing demands is a skill that is needed in the work place and, obviously, allows one to maintain order in your personal life when surprises inevitably come. Develop a system to remain organized at work and it can serve you well at home.

Effective listening. Demonstrating the ability to listen to others well is necessary for successful communication and builds healthy and successful relationships, both in your work situation and in your personal life. We all need to become good at listening and truly hearing others and the work place provides a great opportunity to develop this skill.

Avoiding procrastination. Developing the skill of addressing what is important without delay is critical to becoming a trusted part of your work team. It requires you to identify what is most important and addressing this task to meet the demands of your work schedule. There are always things we'd like to put off at home and learning to avoid procrastination at work can help us be more successful with these tasks in our personal life.

Never Say "It's not my job". You are a team player and are willing to take on any tasks necessary to get the job done, even if they don't fit your job description. The same is true in our personal lives: sometimes we need to take care of the garbage, paint the basement, fix the door, or do something else that we're not trained in or might tale us out of our comfort zone.

Avoid distraction. Staying focused on the task at hand, without getting distracted by coworkers or social media, is a key to success at work. This also helps our personal lives and prevents us from spending our weekend playing video games or staring at our phone when our friend or child is trying to talk to us.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 5 Behaviors That Can Make You More Successful at Work

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 5 Behaviors That Can Make You More Successful at Work: "People destined for greatness know exactly when to quit—only when they’ve found success. You have the patience to see something through to the end."

• The 15 Minute Ritual Necessary to Recharge Your Day: "We've got great research supporting the fact that naps can help corporations and employees, yet we still feel reluctant to make it an acceptable part of a healthy lifestyle and a healthy workday."

• Why the Traditional 4-Year Degree Isn't Cutting It Anymore: "Even as greater numbers of young Americans head to college, fewer are seeing the return on their substantial investments of time, effort and money."

• 3 Reasons Why It's Never Too Late to Start the Work You Love: "I began to look at my time as an investment. If a project did not help me grow, forge meaningful relationships or give me personal fulfillment, it had to go."
• What to Do When You're Feeling Distracted at Work: "If you have colleagues who are constantly distracted themselves, or who tend to pull you away from work, try to spend less time with them."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How Successful People Manage Stress

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• How Successful People Manage Stress: "I see a lot of people who should be working way harder than they are using stress as an excuse to become unproductive slackers."


• How to Use Facebook to Land a Job: "As a rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t show it [to] your grandmother or put it on your résumé, you shouldn’t put it on social media."


• How to Deal with 10 Common Workplace Distractions: "If you are working on an important project and are pressed for time, just shut your cell phone off. Only turn it back on when you truly have time to reply to these messages or just wait until the end of the word day."


• 13 Pearls of Wisdom for a Successful Life: "There's a vast, fantastic world out there. Foster your curiosity, and it will lead you to amazing places."


• 5 Strategy Questions Every Leader Should Make Time For: "Of the various activities and businesses that you have moved into, do they make sense together?"

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share these every weekend so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• If You Want a Great Job, Tell a Great Story: "See yourself as a storyteller, and your professional successes and accomplishments as your story. You have an ability to make an emotional as well as intellectual connection with members of your network and hiring authorities by the way you tell your story."


• Finding the Job of Your Life: "There is no job of your life out there, waiting to be found. There are only jobs that may make you feel more or less alive. If you allow them to, that is."


• How to Overcome Workplace Distraction: "Your email, phone and colleagues will try to pull your attention away, but you may become so engrossed in solving your puzzle that you can concentrate until you find the answers."


• Three Secrets of Entrepreneurship That Will Transform Your Career: "Entrepreneurs have a natural hustle about them—a go-big-or-go-home sensibility to the way they live their lives, run their businesses and pursue opportunities."


• Make Your Body Language Work for You During an Interview: "Research suggests up to 93 percent of communication isn't transmitted via our words, but is broadcast through our actions and attitude." (Also see the related video of the week below.)