Focus Time

Following last week’s introduction to The Healthy Mind Platter, developed by Scientists Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, and Dr. David Rock, today we focus on a central component of our mind platter: Focus Time. I reflect back upon long days in the office, heading home exhausted, wondering what I truly accomplished. A continuous flow of distractions – in meetings constantly pinged through chat apps, emails; office time filled with fly-bys, fire-drills, urgent interruptions; the thoughtfully architected schedule that falls apart after the first morning crisis. It occurs to me that I’ve not protected any time alone to focus and concentrate on critical things that require my 100% attention. The benefits of today’s 7×24, “always on” connectivity culture can be the biggest threat to our brain health and performance. Our brains are not designed to be multi-tasking magicians.

If we can carve out time in our busy days to focus our attention on one task that allows us that sense of mastery or completion, we gift our brains the time to make deep connections. When we allow ourselves adequate focus time, we feel more in control, in balance, in flow, and have a stronger ability to regulate our reactions, responses and stress levels. After two full days of focus time this weekend in an advanced postures yoga class, I learned just how effective I could be, going deep within mind and body, visualizing and feeling the connections as concentrated on one pose at a time. I realized not only a sense of accomplishment and mastery, but a feeling of empowerment as I learned how to maintain focus and block out distractions. It’s empowering, recognizing that feeling of “flow” when you are so focused on one thing, in the moment, and then translating it to other areas of your life.

You don’t need to flip yourself upside down in an inversion to practice Focus Time. Think about one important task or challenge that you wish to make progress on in a goal-oriented way? How can you carve out time this week to focus exclusively on this task? How will you seek to remove the distractions that have been keeping you from this important activity? How will you build a habit of “Focus Time” into your daily mind platter?