What a Pandemic Taught Me About Focus

If there’s ever been a time that’s been easy to not focus, now has been it.

If you work from home and get bombarded by even more push notifications, Slack pings, emails, oddly-timed Zoom meetings, it’s hard to focus.

If you have kids saying “hi daddy/mommy look at me! Look at me!” while you’re trying to hit that deadline, you realize it’s hard to focus.

So how has a pandemic taught me more about focus when it’s something to be more nostalgic about than actively practicing?

Small, Intense Bursts of Work

I’ve mentioned the challenges of work and time management working from home with small kids. Truly the only way we can get things done here is to have small concentrated bits of focus. We get up around 5am and start working immediately and probably get more done in that hour than we would in the same time frame sitting in an office. We know if we don’t get things done then, we won’t.

You remember that feeling you had when you were cramming a test or a project the night before in school? How focused you were in the moment? That’s basically what it feels like…all the time.

That’s not the only time we work though. My wife and I both find small windows where the kids are napping or otherwise occupied (rare) that we can get small tasks knocked out. It may only be a 10-15 minute stretch but knowing that the window is closing quickly makes us both hyper-focused on the task at hand. We even arrange our to-do lists around different times of day knowing what task requires uninterrupted time of headspace versus what can be done in small bits of time.

As an example, when working on a reporting deck at my job, I would take it one slide at a time. Did I have a 15 minute window to get something done? That gave me time to hit one slide. Taking advantage of those small windows help me knock out time consuming tasks in a timely fashion.

Living in the Moment

I’ve learned about focus from a productivity lens but also from a pure “what am I paying attention to now?” perspective.

Multitasking has always been a myth. We’ve gotten a crash course in that the past six weeks. If we try to do something productive with work while the kids are vying for our attention, it’s a lose lose for everyone involved if we try to be two places (mentally) at once. Everyone gets frustrated. I get frustrated because I can’t get something done. They get frustrated that I’m not paying attention to them or am shorter with them as a result.

Even writing this today, I’m sitting next to my daughter who is watching a cartoon and yet have stopped-and-started this post about 27 times.

I’ve learned (even if I clearly have to re-learn every day) that if I’m fully present in whatever I’m doing, things go a lot better. If I’m working on something, do it in a time where I can be all-in on that task, even if it’s just a 10-15 minute window. If I’m with the kids, be all focused on them instead of trying to mitigate instant messages and emails from my phone at the same time.

My hope is that the fully-present mindset is something I can continue to grow in now and after all this is over. Learning focus has not been easy – its physically and mentally draining (especially if you were ADD in high school like I was…and probably still am). It’s worth it.

How has your focus been affected during this pandemic?