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How do you stay focused?

Anything related to matters of the mind

Luffy

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I just want to know how you guys stay focused on what you do and not waste time doing other things.
How do you deal with the temptations that tell you to take a break? To do it later, that gives you all the reason to not do what you're supposed to do. I know I shouldn't waste time but even though I'm aware I can't help but slip into instant gratification and by the time I get my act together I only do like 10% if even that and justify it in my mind that I took action. I want to be more action-oriented and stop being lazy.
 
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Shdreams

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I just want to know how you guys stay focused on what you do and not waste time doing other things.
How do you deal with the temptations that tell you to take a break? To do it later, that gives you all the reason to not do what you're supposed to do. I know I shouldn't waste time but even though I'm aware I can't help but slip into instant gratification and by the time I get my act together I only do like 10% if even that and justify it in my mind that I took action. I want to be more action-oriented and stop being lazy.
Your comfortable. What if it was life or death? What if your procrastinating affected your life so much the thought of not taking action would terrify you? The clock is actually ticking away at your dreams man. ;)
 

Villain

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Accept that someday, you are going to die.

The chances are you will be diagnosed with a terminal illness, and told you have x months to live.

The question is: what will those months be like for you?

Will you be proud of what you accomplished in life? Satisfied with all the amazing experiences that being wealthy and free afforded you?

Or will you spend those months reflecting on all the missed chances, squandered opportunities, and time you wasted procrastinating?

I don't know about you, but that's enough to put a fire under my a$$.
 
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SteveO

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I enjoy what I do. I also enjoy other things and do a lot of them without feeling distracted.
 

Mattie

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The same here, I enjoy what I do, so it's just easy to dive into it, and if you're hungry for it, you just do it. It's an automatic habit as well. If I'm not doing something, I feel guilty. lol I feel I should be doing something productive. I can't stand watching television anymore, or playing games. There's always something to be done. And I think in the back of my mind, I think if I don't stick with good habits, I'll fall backwards, and get lazy.

Sometimes I might thing about stupid stuff, but than just flip on a video, or something to do with keeping my focus and usually back in place in a few minutes. I schedule stuff as well.
 
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Jakawan

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I just want to know how you guys stay focused on what you do and not waste time doing other things.
How do you deal with the temptations that tell you to take a break? To do it later, that gives you all the reason to not do what you're supposed to do. I know I shouldn't waste time but even though I'm aware I can't help but slip into instant gratification and by the time I get my act together I only do like 10% if even that and justify it in my mind that I took action. I want to be more action-oriented and stop being lazy.

1. Write deep and powerful goals.. ones that YOU really want... ones that make you feel. Not just goals that are like, "Yea, that'd be cool."

2. Get accountability. 4 out of 5 successful people I've interviewed, taken to lunch, or talked to... PAY for a mentor or coach.. and also surround themselves with hungry, successful people that pull them up. You don't want to be the slowest one in the group. Don't hang out with the people that want you to drink alcohol, smoke pot, and play call of duty or destiny all day. Get around the people that want to share with you what they just learned from their mentors and influential people.. excited people!

3. Do things that make you FEEL like a millionaire.. that you deserve success.. whether that's going to get a massage, pedicure, test driving a new car, eating a fancy dinner to celebrate your success, whatever.. you have to make yourself happy so that you can be in the right state of mind...

4. Just DECIDE. Seriously.. sit down and become sick of not being where you want to be... you have to have a sense of urgency.. quit wasting time. I just recently listened to a man worth 10s of millions of dollars tell a room full of people.. to remember something they did last week, last month, last year, now 5 years ago... he said.. it seems like just yesterday right? Well... that was 5 years ago... and there's ONLY SO MANY 5 YEAR CHUNKS LEFT... And they will pass faster than you think..

5. Just take action. What's the worst thing that can happen?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
-Dale Carnegie​
 

Supa

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1. Write deep and powerful goals.. ones that YOU really want... ones that make you feel. Not just goals that are like, "Yea, that'd be cool."

2. Get accountability. 4 out of 5 successful people I've interviewed, taken to lunch, or talked to... PAY for a mentor or coach.. and also surround themselves with hungry, successful people that pull them up. You don't want to be the slowest one in the group. Don't hang out with the people that want you to drink alcohol, smoke pot, and play call of duty or destiny all day. Get around the people that want to share with you what they just learned from their mentors and influential people.. excited people!

3. Do things that make you FEEL like a millionaire.. that you deserve success.. whether that's going to get a massage, pedicure, test driving a new car, eating a fancy dinner to celebrate your success, whatever.. you have to make yourself happy so that you can be in the right state of mind...

4. Just DECIDE. Seriously.. sit down and become sick of not being where you want to be... you have to have a sense of urgency.. quit wasting time. I just recently listened to a man worth 10s of millions of dollars tell a room full of people.. to remember something they did last week, last month, last year, now 5 years ago... he said.. it seems like just yesterday right? Well... that was 5 years ago... and there's ONLY SO MANY 5 YEAR CHUNKS LEFT... And they will pass faster than you think..

5. Just take action. What's the worst thing that can happen?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
-Dale Carnegie​

Couldnt say it better, awesome post!
 

The Racing Driver

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Every one of us right here, knows at the back of our head, that we are no longer going to be here one day. Reminding yourself of
that surely can give you a wake up call and a slight boost in motivation.

However, not all of us know when this day is going to come, and therefore we don't always feel this sense of urgency. We need to put in the work day in and day out. What that calls for is to start building better habits.

Start small. It takes some serious willpower or something chasing your a$$ to suddenly make a drastic transformation. I personally was struggling to get started working on creating an online business. I would often spend hours working on a given day, and then not touch it for weeks. Fortunately I stopped that, a few weeks ago, I started spending 30 mins first thing in the morning. 30 mins of focused work, I did it everyday and slowly but surely increased the time I spent on it. Not missed a day, but making consistent progress.

Your situation may be different, but I recommend you start with ONE habit today. Be ultra specific.

Don't say 'I want to be focused in the mornings'

change that to 'I want to spend X hours doing XXX '

or ' I will reach out to X .... every night'

Remove as many barriers which prevent you from doing it, and try reaching out to somebody to hold you accountable.

Finally, make today the best day ever, and tomorrow, and the day after and so on. You'll soon look back and think what a great life you lead..
 
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Luffy

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1. Write deep and powerful goals.. ones that YOU really want... ones that make you feel. Not just goals that are like, "Yea, that'd be cool."

2. Get accountability. 4 out of 5 successful people I've interviewed, taken to lunch, or talked to... PAY for a mentor or coach.. and also surround themselves with hungry, successful people that pull them up. You don't want to be the slowest one in the group. Don't hang out with the people that want you to drink alcohol, smoke pot, and play call of duty or destiny all day. Get around the people that want to share with you what they just learned from their mentors and influential people.. excited people!

3. Do things that make you FEEL like a millionaire.. that you deserve success.. whether that's going to get a massage, pedicure, test driving a new car, eating a fancy dinner to celebrate your success, whatever.. you have to make yourself happy so that you can be in the right state of mind...

4. Just DECIDE. Seriously.. sit down and become sick of not being where you want to be... you have to have a sense of urgency.. quit wasting time. I just recently listened to a man worth 10s of millions of dollars tell a room full of people.. to remember something they did last week, last month, last year, now 5 years ago... he said.. it seems like just yesterday right? Well... that was 5 years ago... and there's ONLY SO MANY 5 YEAR CHUNKS LEFT... And they will pass faster than you think..

5. Just take action. What's the worst thing that can happen?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
-Dale Carnegie​
That hit me, I definitely lack accountability even though I know what I want and what I should do.
 

Imgal

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Some awesome responses already! Like @Mattie and @SteveO a lot of the reason I can stay focused is because I like what I do. I might not like every single part of it (anyone who says that is a liar), but I have a bigger goal in sight. This not only is a motivator, but it allows me to see that every step I'm doing is part of a process to get there. If I slack off on one bit, I know I'm just going to be hurting myself in the future. The times when I can't get focused is when I can't see the point of what I'm doing... and if that happens then it's actually a good thing because it makes me reassess why I'm doing it in the first place.

Doing busy work makes it hard to stay focused. Working hard makes it impossible to not be motivated for where you're heading.
 

Andy Black

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THE ONE THING

"What's the One Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"

www.the1thing.com




Work out your one thing for today, this week, this month, this year, the next 5 years, and your life.

Don't know what your One Thing is? Then finding out IS your One Thing.



Every evening, write them ALL down on tomorrow's to-do list.

Now when you've the urge to do something else, or when something new comes in seeking your attention, check against your One Thing. It will be very obvious whether it will help you get your One Thing done, or not.


Is getting a new customer this month your One Thing?

Then why are you still reading this?




(Note to self... I need to keep doing this every. single. moment. of. every. single. day. ... back to work!)




EDIT:

Maybe these posts will help too:
 
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Gsuz

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What helped me the most with staying focussed is creating a system. This way I don't have to be super worried about not losing my focus, because I can simply follow my system which is guaranteed to bring positive results and I know that everything I want to do has its time and place.

Here's what I do:

1. Creating routines. Most of the things we do follow a certain routine. Even watching Youtube videos for hours straight several days per week without getting anything done is a routine, just not a very good one (for me). So I try to replace those with useful routines. Personal and businesswise this has made a huge difference.

Personal examples:
  • Morning routine: Get up, make bed, glass of water, workout, shower, brush teeth, meditate, drink coffee, 100 seconds short news, write down goals
  • Evening routine: Magnesium, brush teeth, journaling, write down goals, plan next day (prioritize), smartphone away
Business example:
By forcing myself to do this it's easy to streamline things in order to hand them off to a freelancer etc. and easier to spot inefficiencies

2. Writing down my goals daily. Every morning and evening I write down my top 3 long term goals. Over time they are so ingrained into my brain that I simply stop doing things that are not in line with my goals.

3. Eliminate potential distractions. I wrote a thread on how to do this here: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/how-to-stop-wasting-time-on-the-internet.61586/

4. Schedule my day. Each evening I sit down and schedule the following day. I use Sunrise Calendar + Todoist for personal, specific things and have my business tasks in Trello. By doing this the evening before I can get right to work + avoid procrastination. I use the calendar as an overview of how I plan to allocate my time and Todoist/Trello to plan the tasks I want to get done in the timeframe. It's impossible and impractical to adhere to the schedule 100% of the time, but for me it's a great framework.

Example:

cMQSgvT.png


The white space from 19:00 to 22:00 is where I put my personal things, like additional paperwork, online shopping, calls I want to make, getting in touch with people and everything else.


Of course every person is different and what works for me, may not work for you, but it has helped me immensely and even in the worst case scenario: No motivation and no focus at all, it's easy to keep going, because all you have to do is moving down the checklist, step by step.
 
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PatricianCat

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Developing healthy habits is a big one for me.

One of thing I do everyday is something to make myself better than I was the day before.

This could be reading, exercising, learning a skill, etc.

This has transferred into my business life as well.

What is 1 thing I can do today (or 10 or 20 things) I can do today that is going to make this business stronger tomorrow.

And as @Gsuz said. Eliminate distractions.

Story time! Gather round y'all!

Once upon a time (March 2015) I bought an Xbox. I don't know what the F*ck I did that. Probably felt bored. The girlfriend was away for a few months as she had the summer off school and was working for her parents (also entrepreneurs). It was distracting.

Even if it was an hour or two a night it was a lot of time better spent elsewhere.

So I sold it. I actually sold everything in my apartment that was distracting me from my goals.

ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS! Especially time consuming television or video games.
 
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brewster

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What @Andy Black said with finding your one thing.

After that, it's a matter of doing it. Every day.

Get into the habit of waking up early and starting on your one thing right away.

I downloaded a timer on my desktop. When I start that, it's GO time. When I'm on the clock, I don't allow myself to ever get distracted. Either I sit in my chair doing nothing, or I'm working.

When you don't give yourself an option to get distracted, it won't be a problem. It's only when you don't make a conscious decision that distractions can gain a foothold.

I like to set the timer for 33 minutes, take a 5 minute break, and repeat that six times every day.

Often I work more than that, but, I always make sure I do a minimum of ~4 hours every day.
 

luniac

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I follow a personal rule that long as i do at least one single productive thing towards my fastlane on any given day then it's been a productive day or at least not a total waste of a day.

Of course once I start doing that one thing, most of the time i naturally wanna keep going until i did something solid.

Actually to me personally staying focused is NUMBER 1, i even created an online journal to keep track of my progress and help me stay focused. Worth every penny. I call them "Stagnation Report" :) lol
 
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Alan LT

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I schedule my day, Eliminate distraction & take a break once in a while to do something fun or stimulating.
 

OVOvince

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Inner motivation man. A lot of people gave great diverse range of strategies but the two things that help me more than anything is 1) realization that I'm going to die one day and 2) using my negative thoughts to empower me.

Any sort of resentment, anger, whatever is bothering you... If you can learn how to wield it and use it for your advantage, man that thing is going to drive you and push you to do things you didn't do before.
 

Andy Black

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using my negative thoughts to empower me.

Good point.

This just reminded me of something I heard and a great way of visualising things...

You're trying to improve your life, and that means making changes.

There's a part of you that doesn't like change, even if it's in your interest.

Let's call it your lizard-brain. It's there to keep you out of danger, and can't see beyond it's nose. It likes the comfort of where you are now (even if you're sitting on a nail), and fears the unknown of where you want to go.

Imagine that fearful part of your sub-concious watching what you're doing.

It has access to all your plans, and ambitions. It doesn't want you to succeed. It wants you to stay right where you are.

It's goal is to sabotage your efforts to improve your life.

When you're about to take an important step towards your goals, this lizard-brain of yours freaks out and sends you a message to do something different... like check facebook, do some chores, or surf for a while.

Somehow, your lizard-brain can distinguish between actions that are going to move you from your current situation and actions that are not.

Maybe it's even better than you are at distinguishing these "threats" to your current situation.



Soooo....

Why not use your lizard-brain's fear to your advantage?

Whenever you have that tingly feeling urging you to distract yourself, why don't you see it as a big sign that what your about to do is going to move your forward?

See it as your lizard-brain telling you your next action is important to your success.


Show your lizard-brain who's really driving.

Use that distraction urge and double-down even harder on the task at hand.
 
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