3 techniques to stay focused

Everybody knows this situation: you have to do a bigger task, e.g. write a long email, and it just takes ages to finish it. You start to think about other important tasks or even work on them simultaneously. The e-mail just doesn't get done and neither do the other tasks.

There are always thoughts and things that prevent us from working efficiently. Here are some techniques that helped me:

Just do it already 
One of the key notes at the Software Quality Days this year was held by Hermann Scherer. He told a story about a guy who waited for 6 months to contact him after they had met.  He illustrated how exhausting it must  actually be to keep such a thought in your head for such a long period.

Think about it for a moment; it is true. Every time you are in the middle of something, such small tasks pop up in your mind: "Damn it, I wanted to write Tom a short e-mail".

And each time it disturbs your current thinking process and prevents you from finishing your tasks efficiently. So, instead of thinking about it all the time, just do it already, especially small tasks.

  
Write it down 

However, if you are not able to do stuff immediately at least write it down. That is especially helpful when you can't stop thinking about a certain topic; use your Smartphone to take a note for example.

Doing so will help you to remember all the awesome ideas and to stop thinking about it. Furthermore when you take a second look later on you may even realize that they weren't so phenomenal in the first place.

 

One at a time 
If you think you are good at multitasking chances are you actually suck at it (at least if you are multitasking often).  It is even worse if you are working on more complex tasks, where you need some time to dive into the problem context.

Therefore you should not switch between such tasks too often, as you lose a lot of time just for getting back to point where you left off.

First finish that text and afterwards chat with your colleagues or friends on Skype.

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