Advice from our Executive Coaches on How to Develop Focus

This month at The People Side we are exploring the topic of Focus and taking the conversation about ‘time management’ into the game-changing territory of ‘attention management’. In our “go-go-go” culture, where multi-tasking is revered as the ultimate in productivity, it’s no surprise that our attention is spread thin.  It’s also no surprise that, as an antidote to our harried work lives, the concept of mindfulness has recently found its way out of the yoga studios and ashrams and into the board room. Many people believe that mindfulness is primarily a stress management technique. While mindfulness certainly does reduce stress, it also serves to rewire your brain for heightened awareness, focus, and mental productivity. We asked our Executive Coaches to provide their best advice for putting the topic of mindfulness into practice, in service of stronger focus and attention. 

We recently worked with a client who showed up to a virtual session with one of our coaches disjointed, unprepared and clearly not focused on the session. The coach could hear the clicking of the keyboard on the other end of the phone line.  It seemed like a perfect opportunity to discuss the perils of multi-tasking and the value of focus.  As the coach asked deeper questions, the client shared that she felt constantly pulled in multiple directions and just couldn’t turn her brain off, particularly at night when she went home to her family.  As a result, she felt like she wasn’t doing anything particularly well.  When she was at home, she was thinking about work.  When she was at work, she felt bad for not paying more attention at home.  Sound familiar?  She also found that her fuse was very short, both at work and home, because of how overwhelmed she felt all the time. 

The coach asked her if she had ever considered meditation.  The client just laughed and said, “Yeah, like I’ve got room in my life for one more thing!  How am I going to find the time to just sit and be silent?”  Her view of meditation involved spending an hour sitting on a pillow, legs crossed in the classic meditation pose.  Her coach suggested she try one of the many meditation apps available and simply meditate a few minutes a day, gradually increasing the time – just as an experiment.  She could always abandon it if it wasn’t helping. 

The end result?  The client added more and more time to her morning meditation, and she came to crave it.  She saw a change in her behavior at home and at work. She grew more focused, less reactive, and more aware of her emotions and their affect on her.  Her work improved as she had more patience for her team and she became less distracted by situations that would normally have frustrated her. Due to her increased ability to focus her awareness, she was able to step outside of those situations and view them more objectively.

Meditation is just one of many common mindfulness practices. Others include non-judgmental awareness of thoughts and feelings, deep breathing, mindful body scans, and gratitude practices, to name a few.  What is important about mindfulness in the workplace?  According to Harvard Business Review, not only does mindfulness help people manage their personal stress and improve creative thinking, it is also “an asset for leaders seeking to perceive and re-perceive the world to make better strategic choices.”

Read on for five tips to improve your mindfulness at work (and at home):

1. Like the client in our story, consider a meditation practice.  There are many easy-to-use and free or low-cost meditation apps you can download to your phone, such as Insight Timer, Headspace, and Buddhify.  You can meditate pretty much anywhere and anytime.  The key is consistency – work towards a daily practice, even if just for a few minutes each day.  Gradually increase the time until you find a timeframe that gives you the best results. (Also, for a humorous and enlightening read about meditation, read Dan Harris’s book 10% Happier.

2. Grant yourself forgiveness or grace for things that happened in the past.  Mindfulness involves creating awareness around the things in your life that you can control and the things that are out of your control.  If you are constantly berating yourself for previous mistakes or failures, you can’t be present to what’s happening right in front of you.  Forgive yourself, learn from your mistakes and move forward to the present.

3. Breathe.  It sounds so obvious, but when people are stressed out or under pressure, breath is actually one of the first things that suffer.  Again, this practice doesn’t have to be overly complicated or in-depth.  Just start by breathing in for 8 seconds, holding for 8 seconds and breathing out for 8 seconds.  Try that five times before stepping into a big presentation or a difficult conversation, and you’ll automatically put your body into a state of readiness to receive information in a calmer, more objective way.

4. Say goodbye to multi-tasking.  Our brains are physically incapable of focusing on two tasks at once.  It is also incredibly inefficient for the brain to toggle between one task and another.  So why do we do it?  In a study by Zheng Wang at Ohio State University, researchers found that students multi-tasked not because it was particularly effective, but because it made them feel more productive.  Don’t fall into that trap.

5. Connect with nature.  If you are stuck on a problem or can’t see around of one side of an issue, change your scenery, and see if this gives you new perspective.  Get outside and really pay attention to what’s around you: feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, smell the fresh cut grass, listen for the sounds surrounding you.  Inevitably, creating that kind of focus will clear the clutter in your brain and allow space for creativity and problem solving.

At The People Side we are on a mission to re-humanize the workplace because we understand the impact this would have on engagement and human performance.  Our team is ready to help you get to the heart of your business and put this learning into practice.

This “Putting It Into Practice” article is part of our Top 10 Gamechangers for Leaders series.  Every month, our Executive Coaching Team will share our best advice for developing this gamechanger capability. If we were coaching you on this topic, what would we be talking about?  What experiments would you be running?  What questions would you be asking yourself? 

If you are interested in learning more about Executive Coaching and how it might help your leaders focus on building this or other key leadership competencies, please visit The People Side at www.thepeopleside.com/executive-coaching.