Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,69
it and it takes you a while to get back and remember where you were,” said Gloria Mark, lead author of the study. “We found about 82 percent of all interrupted work is resumed on the same day. But here’s the bad news—it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task.”8 That’s more than 20 minutes every time you’re distracted—and how often are you distracted every day?
Tools like meditation, yoga, and certain martial arts can be tremendously valuable in helping you calm your busy mind. But if you’re in the middle of the day and can’t afford to get away for more than a few minutes, there are still some things you can do. Three important ones are:
1. Breathe
We’ve already talked about the value of taking deep cleansing breaths as part of your morning routine. But doing the same thing is valuable whenever you need to re-center yourself. Holistic health expert Andrew Weil, M.D., developed a breathing tool that he calls the 4–7–8 Method. It works like this:
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of 4.
Hold your breath for a count of 7.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of 8.
This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.9
2. Do Something That Has Been Causing You Stress
This goes back to what we talked about earlier regarding procrastination. As we now all know (thanks to Bluma Zeigarnik), things weighing on our minds are going to continue weighing on our minds until we deal with them. If you’re having trouble focusing or if your mind is operating on a dozen planes at the same time, it’s very possible the reason this is happening is because there’s something that you need to do that you’ve been avoiding doing. If that’s the case, do a little 4–7–8 breathing, deal with the stressful task, and then you can get back to everything else you want to do with increased focus.
KWIK START
What is that one important thing that you’re avoiding that is affecting your focus?
3. Schedule Time for Distractions
It might be a challenge for you to turn off your phone and your e-mail when you need to focus, but if you can convince yourself to do these things, great. They’re relatively easy to do. What’s likely to be considerably harder is to avoid letting worries and obligations get in the way of whatever you’re trying to accomplish in that moment. There’s a reason you’re seeing these things as worries or obligations, and that makes them much harder to push out of your mind. Addressing one of your concerns head-on, as we just discussed, is one way to deal with this, but there are going to be situations where that’s simply not possible. Instead, what if you set aside a specific time in your schedule to move these worries and obligations to the forefront of your mind? Simply saying, “I’ll worry about that later” isn’t likely to keep that worry from creeping back 20 minutes from now. But saying, “I’ll worry about that at 4:15” very well might.
KWIK START
Schedule your next distraction time.
BEFORE WE MOVE ON
Unlimiting your focus is a key to unleashing your superpowers. When your mind is truly focused, when you’re completely throwing yourself at a task, you achieve at levels that are impossible when you’re distracted or divided in your thoughts. Before we move on from this chapter, let’s try a few things:
Take a good look at your to-do list and identify the thing (or things) on it that is likely to invade your thoughts until you get it done. Formulate a plan for dealing with that task using some of the antiprocrastination tools you now have.
Do something right now that changes your productivity environment so you can do a better job of staying on task.
Practice a technique for calming your busy mind. Does it work for you? If so, commit to using it regularly.
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STUDY
If I’m going to be a lifelong student,
how can I optimize my study time?
Is cramming the best way to learn something?
How do I become a better note-taker?
One Friday night, after a very busy workweek, I received a call. The person on the other end of the phone told me that we had a common friend and that this friend had suggested he reach out to me.
“Sure, how can I help you?” I said.
For