Another productivity article from William Treseder on HBR.org: The Two Things Killing Your Ability to Focus
We need to carve out more time for ourselves if we want to remain focused and effective at work.
Activities that reduce your focus
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Hyper-connectivity via mobile phones
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Meetings as a default form of interaction
On the second point, the author mentions a Paul Graham essay about the schedules of makers and the schedules of managers.
Steps to effectively focus
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Build up resistance to stress. Calm yourself against stress of your activities and responsibilities.
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Organize tasks. Make your calendar, and be explicit about allocating time for focused work. Creative tasks in the morning. Meetings in the afternoon.
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Clean up. Reduce clutter on your desk. Organize files on your computer. Environment has an effect on your productivity. This reduces potential distractions.
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Shrink meetings. How many people are involved in the fulfillment of a project.
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Preserve buffers. Running from meeting to meeting necessarily causes context switching. Your ability to do this is worse than you think.