How to Stay Focused

0:00When it comes to health and wellness, the most important thing for me is to be able to trust what I put in my body. So whether you are tackling fitness goals, a wellness routine, or shopping for family essentials, iHerb is the one-stop shop for vitamins, supplements, sports nutrition, personal care, and even grocery, baby, and pet products. For nearly 30 years, iHerb has delivered authentic wellness products sourced directly from trusted brands and authorized partners to more than 15 million customers worldwide. And if something doesn't meet your expectations, iHerb makes it right with easy returns and simple refunds.

0:34Visit iherb.com and use the code MINDSET for 20 % off your order. Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have trusted Progressive's name Your Price Tool for years. Just tell Progressive what you want to pay and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Visit progressive.com to find a car insurance rate that works for you. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Hey, a bad hire can really cost your business and a great hire can really accelerate your business. Running a small business means every hire really matters.

1:11A bad hire can cost you time and money and momentum and a good hire can help grow your business immensely. Finding great talent isn't easy when you don't have the time or resources to sift through resumes. LinkedIn's new hiring pro screens candidates for you. So instead of sorting through applicants, you can spend time talking to only the right ones. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash dial. Terms and conditions apply.

1:43Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about harnessing the power of focus. We're going to talk about how to unlock productivity so you can get better at productivity. And then we're going to talk about how to ignore the distractions around you. And when you look at focus, we really only have 24 hours every single day. You know that. And for people to say, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time, because focus is one of the top three things that you need in your life in order to change it, because you have to take action in order to create the life you want.

2:21There is no way around it. None. So you have to do something for your life to change. If you don't change or you don't put action towards changing your life, your life will never change. You can take yesterday and you can put it on to tomorrow. It'll be exactly the same. You can fast forward five years from today. Your life is going to be exactly the same. And the better you become at focus, the more output that you're going to get for every single hour that you put in to whatever it is that you're working on, whether that be your business, whether that be your self-development, your life, your bank account, your health, whatever it might be.

2:56The more that you can get focused and bring 100 % or as close to 100 % of your brain power to something, the better that you're going to get of every hour that you put into something. But when we look at focus, what exactly is focus? Is it just the act of paying attention? Is it the act of making sure that, you know, other things don't come up to your mind and being able to just zone in? Maybe it is, but maybe a better description would be that focus is just the act of saying yes to one thing while saying no to basically everything else. It's saying yes to sitting down and writing your book and nothing else for an allotted amount of time, whatever that might be.

3:33It could be 30 minutes. It could be an hour. It could be saying yes to I'm going to focus on building my business. for this next hour and nothing else. I'm going to focus on cultivating mindset for the next hour. That could be yoga. That could be meditating. That could be journaling and bringing as much of your brain power as you possibly can to something. So it's saying yes to one thing while saying no to basically everything else. It's about making the choice to go for that one thing, even if it's just a few minutes and saying no to every other option. You know, Tim Ferriss once said, what you don't do determines what you can do.

4:08As you start getting older and start working on things and building a business or building a family, you realize that actually what becomes more important than saying yes to something is what you're going to say no to. And the more influential that you become, the more that you start having kids and start having family and start having business or work or whatever it might be, you've got to become really, really good at saying no to stuff. Because when you're saying yes to something, it means that you are actually saying no to something else. Now, mind you, it doesn't mean that you have to say no to something forever.

4:40It doesn't mean you have to never watch Netflix ever again, but you can say no to Netflix or no to Instagram or TikTok in order to sit down and study for the exam that you have coming up. And in fact, if you really want to do best that you possibly can on the exam that you have coming up, you have to say no to Netflix. You have to say no to Instagram because most people, I'm this way too. Whenever I preach these things, These are all things that I practice in my own life because I am nowhere near perfect. But most people, we sit down and we start doing something, whether that's studying, whether that's writing a book, whatever it might be.

5:13And seven minutes in, you think, huh, man, you know what? I wonder, I wonder how many people liked my last photo. Or three minutes in, you're like, oh man, you know what? I forgot to text Nadine back. And you start thinking about all of the other things besides the thing that you're doing. And at that point in time is when you have to say no. So focus is simply the act of saying no to everything for the amount of time that you need to either complete that thing that you're sitting down to do or until the time that you've committed, if it's 45 minutes, I said I was gonna give myself 45 minutes to work on this thing.

5:45It's saying no to everything else for those 45 minutes and saying yes to just that one thing. It really is that simple. It's one task until it's done or until your timer goes off. And this might be your number one key to productivity. And guess what? most people in this world are absolutely terrible at it. So if you can master this thing, you can get so much further ahead of everyone else. I don't know about you, but when I look around and see other people, I see a lot of very, very distracted people, people who can't get off of their phones, can't stop texting, can't get away from email, can't get away from notifications, can't get away from social media.

6:19And so if you really want to be further along than the average person a year, two years, five years down the road, focusing is going to be really, really important. And the first thing that it comes down to, oddly enough, the obstacle that most people encounter isn't actually focusing itself. It's actually the act of making decisions. Many people are just terrible decision makers. They either can't make a decision or when they do make a decision, they start questioning their decision and they go back on the decision. And then they question the hell out of their decision. And so your brain, you must know, can only focus focus on one thing and one thing only.

6:55Your brain can focus. It can focus. So if you're like, oh, I'm a distracted person. I have ADD. I have ADHD. Sure. Maybe you do, but it doesn't mean that your brain can't focus. In fact, if you do have ADHD, there's actually been many studies that have found when somebody who has ADHD finds something that they love, something they actually want to do, they're able to tune out the entire world. And so people that have ADHD are like, oh, I can't focus because I have ADHD. It might be that you can focus really well. You're just not finding things that you love to actually try to focus on. And so when people have ADHD, when they focus on something that they love, the entire world can disappear.

7:33And that's pretty awesome when you can use it and realize that it's actually your superpower. Let me give you an example. Have you ever had a deadline that's fast approaching and maybe you have a presentation that's coming up for work or something that you need for work, an email, it's got to go out. Maybe it's a proposal and you're getting stressed, but you know, the deadline's coming up. You're like, oh my gosh, tomorrow I have to have this proposal done by you're getting stressed because it's getting closer and closer. But if you ever like gotten to the point where your brain, you lock in, like it's locked in and you find a way to complete it, even though you might not have had a whole lot of time.

8:05Maybe it could be that you stressed out for a while and you didn't take action. Maybe you procrastinated until you got to the point where it was like unavoidable and it had to be done. And guess what? You took action, you got it done, and you probably did really well. So it is possible, but really it comes down to how do we actually start to make it happen more often? How do we train ourselves to get better at this thing? Well, let's dive into a little bit deeper. And we will be right back. Hey, showing up for yourself day in and day out and doing the hard things is what creates a better life.

8:39And noon hydration helps you stay moving with the real deal activated hydration built to support you through those moments that challenge you. Noon hydration tablets deliver clean ingredients and optimize electrolytes that hydrate better than water alone, especially when you're sweating or on the go. The tablets dissolve quickly, taste great, and come in a single, no-mess tube that you can take anywhere. Noon is designed for people who value whole self-growth, community, and the joy of showing up for themselves through movement, exploration, and effort. And at less than$1 per serving, it's easy to make part of your routine.

9:20Shop Noon Hydration at NoonLife.com. That's N-U-U-N Life.com and fuel your next hard thing. Mint Mobile plans are only$15 per month. Wondering what's the catch? There isn't one. There are no gimmicks and no gotchas. Just unlimited talk, text, and data, fast, reliable coverage on the nation's largest 5G network, and an award-winning care team. That makes Mint Mobile a catch. Since switching to Mint Mobile, I've stopped stressing every month when my phone bill hits. I'm paying way less, my service still works great, and honestly, I wish I would have switched sooner. To get your new wireless plan for just$15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash mentor.

10:05That's mintmobile.com slash mentor. Cut your wireless bill to$15 a month at mintmobile.com slash mentor. That's it. There's no catch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to$15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Have you ever been late night shopping, finally found exactly what you've been looking for, added it to your cart and then realized your card's nowhere in sight. And just when you're about to give up, you see that purple pay button, one tap, and you're checked out in seconds.

10:44Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the US, from household names to brands just getting started. Tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more. Their shop pay button is used by millions of businesses, and it's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. It also helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for you. See less carts go abandoned and more sales with Shopify and their ShopPay button. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash dial.

11:21Go to shopify.com slash dial. That's shopify.com slash dial. And now back to the show. The first thing I want to talk about that I find a lot of people that holds a lot of people back is the idea of multitasking. Now, when you look at multitasking, human beings are incredible. You possess the capability of performing multiple tasks at the exact same time. You know, you're listening to this podcast and you're probably doing something else. You're probably not just sitting there staring at a wall, listening to my voice. You're probably driving. You might be working out. You might be making breakfast.

11:54Hey, probably like 1 % of you right now are actually pooping. Like, yep, I just called you poopers out. You're sitting there. You're listening to me. Now you're on the toilet. You're like, Oh my God, where's the video cameras? Rob know that I'm pooping right now. I just called you poopers out. You're doing something while you're listening to this podcast. That's fine. That's not a big deal. That's fine for some things like just listening to a podcast very passively, but for highly important, high priority things, never try to multitask. Your brain is not able to give 100 % of attention to two things at one time.

12:27It is absolutely not impossible. Your brain can only bring a hundred percent of attention to one thing at a time. And so if you need to actually get something done, it's one of the worst things you could try to do is multitask to try to do, Oh, I'm going to do this presentation and proposal, but also I need to a couple of emails. I got to get done at the same time because multitasking itself is actually not real. You can only single task. Your, your brain can only single task from one thing to another. And when you think you're multitasking, you're actually just rapidly switching from one task to another, one task to another, one task to another.

12:58And psychologists have actually found that when you switch between two tasks, you actually get something that's called a cognitive penalty each time you switch from one task to another. So when you go from writing your book to checking email, you're getting a penalty every single time you do it. And this is really what it is. It's a performance disruption when you switch your attention from one thing to another thing. There's actually a study that was done at the International Journal of informative management. And the study in 2003 discovered that on average, if you just decide that you are doing something right now and you decide you want to go check your email, right?

13:34The average person at work checks their email every five minutes and it takes no less than a minute to two minutes sometimes to get your brain back to doing what you were to before. And here's the crazy part. To go even deeper to it, if you're sitting down and you're writing your book and you're in the zone and you're just cranking out and you're just, you're there. It's creativity is flowing. Words are flowing. You're in flow. Like you're in flow of the universe, right? And you're just getting it done. And you're sitting there and you're right and you're typing on your computer and a little notification pops up from the right and says that you have an email.

14:09A little notification comes through. It can take your brain up to 15 minutes to get back to the level of focus that you were at before just viewing the notification. Now I said viewing the notification, not even clicking and reading the email, but just seeing that little notification pop up for three seconds and disappear. If you're in flow and the notification comes through, it can take up to 15 minutes to get back to that flow. And you probably know, you've probably done this before. You're in the zone, you're getting it done. Something comes through and you can't even get back into the flow that you were before.

14:44Like when I was, when I was writing my book, there were many times that I had to lock myself in my office. And I said, I have this amount of time or I have this thing that I have to complete. It's this chapter has to be done, whatever it is. And I sat at a desk with nothing on the desk, except for my computer and an external monitor. And I turned off my wifi. I took my phone. I turned my phone off. I put in another room. And the reason why I turned off my wifi, so therefore no notifications, I couldn't go and check another website. But what I did was I gave myself no other option. It was either I was going to write or I was going to stare at my screen.

15:20There was nothing else. And so that's how I wrote my book. And that's how I went through 16 different iterations of the book and changing it around. But I gave myself no other option. So as you're getting focused and you're trying to take action, you're trying to create the life that you want. Can you figure out a way to give yourself no other option, but to do that thing. You know, if you are going into the gym, a lot of people go into the gym. I've been into many gyms and half the time people are looking at their phone. So is there a way for you to go into the gym and not be distracted at all?

15:52Maybe you have a Apple watch and you can download your songs off Spotify onto your Apple watch. And then you can turn off the actual cellular service on your phone. You can put in your earbuds and your earbuds are connected to your watch. And the only thing you can do is work out. You can either work out or you can watch other people work out like a creep. Those are the only options that you really have, right? So can you give yourself no other options? That's what it comes down to. So let me give you seven really quick tips to help you focus and to try to build the muscle of focusing because you can become better at focusing at all points in time.

16:28I always think of focus like a muscle. I wasn't really good at focusing about four years ago. And then I realized the amount of distractions that I had in my life and how much it was holding me back. And I slowly started pulling these things out of my life. I started making adjustments. I started developing routines. And through that, I'm going to give you some of the tips that I have. Okay. So the first thing is the opposite of being focused is being distracted. So the first tip I'm going to give you is to remove as many distractions as possible. Once again, clear an area if you need to. Put your phone in another room.

16:59Listen to me, please. This is like a simple, simple tip that will master your focus and help you get so much better. Put your phone in another room so that therefore you have no other option but to take action. What other distractions might exist? Notifications. Make sure there's no notifications that can come through. What other things can get in the way of your focus? What other distractions exist? Other people. Can you have headphones on? Can you make sure that when people know there's headphones on? I know somebody who works in a open office and they put their headphones on. And when they put their headphones on, they'll literally take a piece of paper that says, do not tell me, do not distract me unless there's an emergency.

17:39And they will tape it to their back so that everyone who walks by, if they're about to say something to them, they go, oh, okay, no, I can't. I can't go talk to him, right? So first thing is remove as many distractions as possible. The second thing is if you're like me and you have a massive to-do list every day, like my to-do list is like 27 things every single day. What I want you to do is I want you to go through your to-do list every single morning, and I want you to circle the most important things. So number two is to prioritize your to-do list. You have all of this stuff. How do you identify what is the most important?

18:09You're going to look at that list, and you're going to ask yourself, what is the most important and urgent task on this list? What is the most important and urgent? So like you might have in your to-do list that you need to take out the trash today. That's not important and urgent. You can do that later on tonight. You might have that you need to do the laundry. That's not important energy. You might have it at six o 'clock. You got to pick up your son from soccer, right? It's not six o 'clock yet. So it's not urgent. So what you're going to do is you're going to find your three most important, highest priority, most important and urgent tasks that you have on your to-do list.

18:40You're going to circle them, number one, number two, number three, and you're going to rank them. And then what I want you to do is I want you to take, if you really want to get good at this, you take a cue card, a three by five card. And what I want you to do, the index card is actually what they're called, an index card. and I want you to write number one. I want you to write number two. I want you to write number three. Take your to-do list, the big, huge one that has 747 things on it, put it inside of your desk drawer and look at number one, number two, number three, and take action number one.

19:06And so what it comes down to is to prioritize your to-do list and then give yourself no other option, but take action number one. If you had nothing else done today, but number one, awesome. And that's what you want to do. Okay. So that's number two. Number three is to take large tasks and break them into smaller tasks. When you have a really large task that's going to require days of work, it can be really overwhelming because you're not thinking about just the task. You're thinking about all of the things that you have to do to get that done. And that can lead to massive amounts of procrastination.

19:36And so what you want to do is you want to break them down into smaller, smaller, more manageable tasks and work on them one at a time. It makes the heavy lifting a lot easier and it doesn't feel as daunting. And it also makes you feel more accomplished when you get a small task done. And so let's say once again, that you got to do a proposal, right? And the proposal is done. It's maybe it needs to be done in a week, right? So there's not just the entire proposal. There's different aspects of the proposal. It might be the introduction. There might be the research. There might be the graphs you need to make for it.

20:05There might be the PowerPoint presentation you need to create. So what you would do is instead of saying create proposal, which is a lot of things over the next week you have to do, it would be create the intro to the proposal by 11 a.m. So finish it by 11 a.m. And then now you just have to work on that one thing. So you take your big tasks and you put them down, chunk them down into smaller tasks, more bite-sized tasks, which number one, makes you feel like it's not as daunting. And number two, it gives you an opportunity to check things off your to-do list and start to feel like you're more accomplished.

20:38Okay, we got the intro done. Next after the intro, I need to do some market research. Okay, market research is number two. I'm going to give myself three hours. Okay, by two o 'clock, I need to get market research done for this. And you start working on it. Okay, next thing I need to do is I need to create the graphs. And you give yourself time to work on the graphs. And then you check that off to do this. Okay, next thing I need to do is I need to take all this and put it into a PowerPoint. Then after a PowerPoint, I need to give it to Stacy. And she needs to review it. And after she comes back, I need to make adjustments to it and make the final.

21:05And what you do is you take these really large, daunting tasks. You just make them much smaller. And it's good now because the best part about it is it's like it goes from these really huge things, these little teeny tiny things that make you feel like kind of like you're playing a video game and you get all the different checkpoints, right? So take your large tasks, make them smaller. Second thing, focus on the process and not the actual event itself. And another really, really big thing is to focus on how much your progress is, how much you're progressing on these tasks. So a lot of times I'll hear people like, oh my gosh, well, I had this huge thing I had to do today and I only got halfway done with it.

21:43Well, focus on the progress, not the entire thing itself. Often people see success as like one big single event that needs to be achieved and completed. No, you can actually see success as the progress that you're making towards something. And so a lot of times it's like we're driving and we're only looking out of, you know, if you're driving a car, you're not only looking out the entire drive of the windshield. You're also looking in your rear view mirror every once in a while. So every once in a while, look in your rearview mirror and celebrate yourself for the small things that you're getting done that's getting you closer to that.

22:16Okay, that's number four. Number five, really simple one, prioritize your sleep. One of the things that really holds people back from focusing is that they don't get enough sleep. And then what they're trying to do, they get six hours of sleep when they really needed eight, and now they're trying to figure out why they can't focus. Well, your brain just isn't working as well as it could. It's just simple as that because you didn't get enough sleep. And so sleep is one thing that I prioritize every single night. If I go to bed later than I wanted to, I will move things that I had to do in the morning back if possible to allow myself to sleep longer.