Long hours at your desk can make it hard to maintain your focus and maximize your productivity at work. Read on for our easy tips to help improve your ability to concentrate and maintain productivity throughout the work day.
- Make sure you’re getting enough rest
You should always try and make sleep a priority – without enough of it you simply can’t function as efficiently, and you’ll find yourself losing concentration fast. Getting a good nights’ rest of around 7-9 hours will help your focus and concentration and stop you from experiencing that mid-afternoon slump in energy.
- Eat well
Your ability to focus will really benefit if you ensure you are eating the right kinds of foods – leafy green veggies, fatty fish such as salmon or trout, nuts, blueberries, and avocados are just some of the best foods for maintaining and even improving your focus throughout the day. Why not incorporate some of these into a healthy breakfast to get your metabolism going and set you up for the day ahead.
- Put your smartphone away
Smartphones are pretty much at the top of the list of possible day-to-day distractions in a modern working environment, and if yours is sat out on your desk and flashing message or app notifications every 10 minutes, it can be extremely difficult to resist the urge to drop what you’re doing and check it. Help maintain your focus during working hours by turning your cell to silent and keeping it in your bag or desk drawer so you won’t be tempted to check it. If it is difficult to go cold turkey, try only checking it every hour or so and then building up the time in gradual increments.
- Make your workstation comfortable
It can be extremely distracting when you’re stuck fidgeting all day because you’ve inherited your co-worker’s tired old desk chair, or your squinting at your overly-bright computer screen which can lead to a loss of focus on important tasks throughout the day. Make sure you set up your workspace to exactly how you want it to be and don’t just put up with it if something’s not right – report the problem to the relevant department and make sure you receive a comfortable chair or adjust your computer monitor to the way it works best for you.
- Don’t let email distract you
When you see a message preview ping through in the bottom corner of your screen, it is so easy to get distracted from your current task and inevitably get caught up in an email exchange or urgent request for some other information. Try turning off the message preview function in your email browser, and when you’re really in deep focus on an important task consider switching your email to ‘offline’ altogether so that you are not receiving anything at all during this time. As soon as you are ready to check them again you can set your status back to ‘online’ and any messages sent during your downtime will appear.
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