18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work
August 14th, 2006 by Dave Cheong
Over the years I have worked at many client sites and a variety of office layouts. On one project in particular, we had as many as 80 people in a project team, seated via an open plan arrangement. It was pretty difficult trying to stay focused in an environment like this. These days, the projects I’m on are typically smaller, but there are still a number of distractions which frequently interrupt my working groove. So what are some of the things we can do to minimise such interruptions and distractions?
Here’s my list of 18 ways to stay focused at work:
- Write out a daily task list and plan your day. There’s nothing like a task list sitting next to you to keep you focused. When you have a list of the things you need to accomplish in a day, having that close to you constantly reminding you of what needs to be done is a great way of keeping on track.
- Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you. In a busy work place, people are moving and talking all the time. If you play a role in a team where others need to interact with you, try allocating a time slot they can interrupt you. Instead of having people stop by your desk every 10 mins and asking you questions, let them know of a time in the day, say between 2-4pm you can be interrupted. At all other times, you can really get some work done.
- Apply time boxing. In a previous article, I wrote about the benefits of time boxing. Instead of working at something till it is done, try working on it for a limited period, say 30 mins. By that time, the task is either completed or you allocate another time slot, perhaps in another day, to pick it up again. This way, you keep your work fresh and engaging throughout the entire working day.
- Setup filters in your email. If you spend a lot of your time communicating and planning in front of your computer, chances are you deal with emails on a frequent basis. Setting up filters in your email client can be a great way of sorting out what’s important and urgent from personal stuff which can wait. Instead of dealing with a single Inbox with hundreds of unread email, you only need to deal with smaller folders categorised by project, priority and context.
- Do not check personal email in the morning. Checking personal emails can be very distracting even with filters setup. This is especially true when your friends send you links to interesting articles, jokes or videos on YouTube. If you’re not careful, you can get side tracked for hours. Instead of checking your personal email as soon as you get in, try starting work straight away. This will build up some momentum as you ease into your work day. You should check your personal email only after you have a few tasks completed or underway. Also, if you don’t want to perpetuate a particular distracting email thread, just don’t reply to it until after work.
- Set your IM status. If you use Instant Messenger, when you don’t want to be disturbed, make use of the status and set yourself as being away or busy. Your friends and colleagues will honour that. They can either send you an email or look you up later when you aren’t as busy.
- Listen to the right types of music. Music is a great way of settling into the working routine. In addition, having music can drown out office noises like printers and background chattering. Be careful though, depending on personal preference, some types of music are not particularly conducive to productive work. For me, I can’t work when listening to songs with lots of lyrics because the words interrupt my thinking process.
- Use the headphones but leave the music off. Some people prefer to have absolute silence when working. I think that also depends on what kind of work you are doing. If you’re doing some serious planning or something computational, having music blasting in your ears may not be the best thing for keeping focused. Try using headphones or ear plugs to block out the background noise but leave the music off.
- Fill up a water bottle. Keeping yourself hydrated is pretty important for all sorts of health reasons. Instead of going to the water cooler with your glass every hour, try filling up a water bottle at the start of the day. This does a couple of things - firstly, it limits the starts/stops associated every time you get up for water and secondly, it avoids being sucked into lengthy discussions around the water cooler.
- Find the best time to do repetitive and boring tasks. No matter how much you try to avoid it, you’re going to have to face doing things which are either repetitive or boring. For these tasks, I find it is best to choose a time in the day to work on them. For example, I’m more alert at the start of the day, so it’s better to work on things which require brain power early. Working on boring tasks that can be done via auto-pilot are better left towards the end of the day when I’m usually tired.
- Bring your lunch and have it at your desk. I’m not suggesting you do this every day, but if you really have to focus and are trying to meet a deadline, having your lunch at your desk really helps. The normal one hour lunch break can really interrupt any momentum you might have built up during the morning. I find when I’m eating lunch at my desk, my lunch breaks are shorter and I can get through a few emails while I’m eating. After I’m done, I’m straight back working on the next task.
- Don’t make long personal calls. Most of us have a good separation between our working and personal lives (or a least try to). I think we can all agree we should avoid having work intrude on our personal time as much as possible. The reverse of this also applies. Try limiting the time you spend doing personal things during work as they can be distracting and draining on your motivation. For example, you do not really want to be thinking about your weekend away with your spouse when you really need to get things done.
- Clean up your desk. Some of you may have desks which can only be described as ordered chaos. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you can find what you need without too much digging around. However, if you can’t, I suggest cleaning up your desk. That doesn’t mean having an empty desk, it just means having neat stacks of paper, all filed in the correct location. It also helps tremendously having all the things you need easily within arms reach. For example, if you need a place to write, having your pen and notepad close by and easily accessible is incredibly useful.
- Get a good chair. If you sit for long hours at your desk and I’m sure some of you do, you might find it helpful to get a good chair. I find it’s pretty hard to stay focused when my neck and back are sore because I have a bad setup at my desk. A good chair can eliminate this, allowing you to work for long stretches without breaks and physical distractions.
- Use shortcuts on your computer. If you find you do the same thing with your computer more than once throughout the day, you might find it helpful to look for ways in which you can do them without too much manual repetition. For example, if there’s a project folder you access all the time, try adding a shortcut to your Explorer or Finder so you can get access to it with a single click, instead of expanding folder after folder in the tree panel.
- Close programs you’re not using. As a software engineer, I use a lot of programs important to my work. However, in most cases, I only need a few applications open at the same time. Instead of Alt-Tabbing constantly and fighting the computer to locate the program you need, try only having the applications you need open. Close everything else. For example, if you have already located a file and no longer need a particular Explorer or Finder instance open, close it. There’s no reason to leave it around at all.
- Limit time on Digg, Delicious, news sites and blogs. I don’t think I need to say too much about this. There are so many sites on the Internet worth looking at, including this site
. Digg, Delicious, news and blogs are great from an interest perspective, but they can really take you away from the work you should be working on. Try to limit going to these sites during the working day. If you really have to, try doing it during your lunch time. No, you don’t need to have your finger on the pulse every single minute of the day… - Change your mindset and make work fun. For me, I find it difficult to stay focused on doing things I’m not by nature interested in doing. In most cases, there’s probably nothing I can do about it. However, be mindful of the fact that your perception of work is something you can control. For my last tip here, I suggest you try changing your mindset or turning work into a game. An unfocused mind, is an unchallenged mind. So make things fun!
I hope these tips will take you closer to more focused and productive work days. If you are still in need for more tips about staying focused, you can take a look at a previous blockbuster smash hit article I wrote entitled 11 ways of staying focused. In that article, I approached the issue from a top down, rather than bottom up perspective.
Ok, good luck! If you like this article, tell your friends, Digg it or add it to your Delicious bookmarks.
Hey, what are you still doing here? Get back to work!
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5 Steps to Accomplishing your Goals
August 3rd, 2006 by Dave Cheong
Most of the time I think we can cruise through life without having any major goals. However, for things that are truly worth accomplishing, specifying the ins and outs of a goal is pretty important. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a few simple steps we can follow to describe how we can approach our goals and ensure we accomplish them?
Well, here’s my attempt at defining a nice simple 5 step framework anyone can follow. In this post, I’ll use losing weight, getting fit and going to the gym as one concrete example. However, you can apply it to any goal you have as the steps are equally as relevant.
1. Define your goal and give it shape
The very first thing you need to do is to define your goal. After all, without knowing what the goal actually is, how can you go about accomplishing it?
Goal setting is an art form. It is about articulating what your goal is about, being realistic in whether you can accomplish it or not and providing the metrics to track your progress. I’ve written about the characteristics of a good goal before, so read that post first if you haven’t yet done so.
To give your goal shape, I find it is helpful to actually write it down. Get a fresh piece of paper and describe each of the following characteristics for your goal.
In my example of losing weight and getting fit:
- Conceivable: I intend to lose 24 kgs within 12 months and be capable of running 3 kms in 10 mins.
- Achievable: I am able to commit to two 90 min sessions. With a proper training program and commitment, I am assured by various fitness instructors that this is achievable.
- Measurable: I will track how many kgs I lose each month. In the simpliest scenario, I must lose 2 kgs per month to attain my goal.
- Aligned: Losing weight and getting fit is congruent to my other goals in life which is about being happy about who I am and how I look.
- Worthwhile: I acknowledge this is a challenging task, but it is something worth accomplishing. I would like to live a healthy life so I can watch my kids grow up and get married.
- Desirable: This is something I truly wish to accomplish and will do everything I can to attain it. I desire this more than eating fried chickens and carrot cakes.
2. Identify the next few tasks
Once you have your goal properly defined and shaped, identify the next few tasks you need to do in relation to your goal. Unlike traditional project management where you define all the tasks, dependencies and contingencies, this step is about identifying the next few tasks only.
Why the next few only? There are a couple of reasons: Firstly, unless you are used to planning or have a crystal ball, there is no way you can accurately plan every single action you need to take to accomplish your goal. Secondly, you can only work on a few things at a time, so all you need is a few actions to start the ball rolling.
In my example, the next tasks to being fit and healthy are:
- Assess the equipment, staff and pricing for all local gyms.
- Buy two sets of appropriate gym wear.
- Get some good headphones to plug into the gym’s music system.
- Free up all after work commitments for Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Although there are possibly a myriad of other tasks I would have to act on to accomplish this goal, they are not essentially the next tasks. For example, getting a trainer and an exercise program are tasks I can only perform after signing up with a particular gym so I don’t bother writing these down now.
Try it for yourself. First write down the definition of your goal. On the same piece of paper, write down the next 3-5 things you need to do in relation to this goal.
3. Set aside time and work through your tasks
After you have defined your goal and identified the next tasks and actions, prepare some time to actually work on them. One effective technique I have found which works for me is Time boxing. Essentially, Time boxing is a technique in which we limit the amount of time we spend on a given task. So instead of working until the task is “done”, we spend say 30 mins on it. It is either “done” at that point or we schedule another 30 mins to work on it another time. Time boxing is effective because we instantly focus on what’s important, avoid potential overruns and can act as a motivator against procrastination.
Another thing I should mention here is the importance of actually dedicating a time slot for working at your tasks. By this I mean, actually blocking out a period in the day or week in which you are actively looking at your task list and crossing things off. The reason why this is important is because we can have busy lives and sometimes we use this as an excuse not to do something. By allocating time, we have no excuses and can also establish good habits and positive patterns.
In my example, blocking out 90 mins on Tuesday and Thursday nights after work applies both the Time boxing and the regular routine techniques to my weekly patterns.
4. Review and reward
One of the most important thing about accomplishing goals is measuring your progress and reviewing your goal and assumptions as you go. If you are measuring well against your goal, you can reward yourself.
The trick about reviewing your goals and tasks is to pick a system that you trust. Some people prefer the paper based planners, whilst others prefer the electronic alternatives like a PDA or Microsoft Outlook. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is to have a system you trust and will look at periodically. In the past, I used Outlook to track my outstanding tasks. However, this has proved ineffective for me because I split my day between work and home and never do I have a single Outlook installation which has both my “work” and “personal” tasks available at the same time. As a consequence, I didn’t look at the tasks periodically and eventually stopped adding them altogether.
Why is it important to reward yourself? Well, some goals are difficult to accomplish and may require both time and ongoing effort. Rewarding yourself is simple way keep motivated. In my example on fitness and going to the gym, I can reward myself by buying a new set of running shoes in order to encourage myself to reach that 3 kms in 10 mins benchmark.
5. Revisit, revise and reassess if required
The flip side of tracking well is not tracking well. You may have to revise your goal or reassess any assumptions you may have made in order to be pragmatic and realistic about how achievable your goals really are.
Why is it important to revise our plans? Sometimes we set goals which are simply unrealistic, perhaps through no fault of our own. For example, dedicating two days each week to go to the gym could be too demanding on our schedules. Perhaps we have to pick the kids up from day care after work or we have a deadline which requires us to stay a bit later. Whatever the reasons, sometimes things don’t pan out as we originally planned. That’s ok, all we need to do is revise our plans. That could mean scaling back our commitments or planning around them. If work is making us stay back late, perhaps we can consider going to the gym in the mornings or take shorter lunch breaks.
One common mistake I see people make is punishing themselves when they fail to meet a certain commitment. For example, if I have committed to two days per week of going to the gym, missing one session may provoke a vengeful reaction from my inner self. I can punish myself by promising to go three times next week. In my experience, this is usually a bad idea for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we may make good on our promise in the short term but seldom would it work in the longer term. So what happens if we miss another session or another or another? Are we going to keep promising to have three session weeks? Secondly, it associates a negative thing to our goal. Given enough occurrences of this negative thing, we may give up the goal entirely which is obviously something which we do not want to happen.
I prefer the approach of revising our plans or our initial assumptions. This keeps our mind focused on the positives of our goal and outcomes. The trick is to determine the fine line in the sand between revising our goals because the assumptions were incorrect and our general “slackness” in working at our next tasks and actions.
In conclusion
The 5 steps I have described above hopefully can provide you with a framework for accomplishing your goals. Remember, start with a well defined goal by ensuring you describe the 6 characteristics of a good goal. If you want more reading material, you can also take a look at Steve Pavlina’s latest post in which he talks about setting goals you will actually achieve. Once you have your goal defined, identify the next immediate tasks and actions. Then set aside some time and block it out so you can actually dedicate some brain power and resources to completing them. Frequently review your progress and either reward yourself or revise your plans.
If you have any comments about goal setting and this simple 5 step framework, feel free to leave a comment.
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Time Boxing is an Effective Getting Things Done Strategy
July 26th, 2006 by Dave Cheong
Given a task, there are essentially two ways we can approach it. Either, we can work as hard as we can until it is “done” or we can fix the amount of time we have available and do the “best” we can. The latter approach is known as “Time boxing“.
Time boxing is a very simple technique we often use in software development. It is an effective technique for tracking progress and simply getting things done. From a planning perspective, time boxing is useful, especially when things appear complex or daunting initially and we are unsure of how to begin.
From a personal management perspective, I’ve found that time boxing can greatly improve our productivity and effectiveness. Because it’s simple, anyone can do it - including you. I use it when working on open ended tasks, like writing, where neither the scope or the quality is well defined.
This article briefly discusses how we can apply time boxing to our daily lives and get things done.
What is time boxing?
Time boxing is about fixing the time we have available to work on a given task and then doing the best we can within that time frame. So instead working on something until it is “done” in one sitting, we only work on it for say 30 mins. It is either marked as done at the end of this period or we commit to another 30 mins at a later time or another day.
In software development, an agile team releases new versions of a product to the customer for testing in fixed length iterations, say weekly. The customer and the development team work together to identify the features to be included in each release based on the relative priority and complexity of each task.
What’s special about Time boxing?
There are always several things competing for our time. At any moment, each of us could have hundreds of outstanding things to do. This question immediately become important - How can we ensure we get as much done as possible?
I believe time boxing is special for four reasons. Firstly, by consciously being aware of time, it allows us to focus on doing the things that matter most. Secondly, it serves as a reality check on how much time we spend working on open ended tasks. Thirdly, because of the fixed time constraints, it can be an effective tool against procrastination. Finally, it allows us to work on things during the free gaps we have between our commitments and appointments.
Focus on doing the things that matter most
If the time available we have is limited, a rational person should immediately think about prioritising their outstanding tasks based on what’s important and urgent.
By using time boxing and ranking our outstanding tasks, we make ourselves consciously aware of how much time we have available. This allows us to focus our energies towards things that matter most. In this way, we get things that matter most done first.
There are many techniques for ranking tasks and I won’t go into them in this post. However, it’s worth mentioning “Quality Function Deployment” - which is a technique we use in software development and engineering to translate customer requirements into engineering specifications. In the simplest sense, for each feature, we multiply a number representing a customer’s perception of its importance by another number representing an engineer’s estimation of the complexity. The final result is ranked and the relative ordering gives us an indication of what we should implement given a certain time constraint.
Limiting the time spent on open ended tasks
Do you know people who are perfectionists? Those who are constantly tweaking things to make them incrementally better or just different? To a certain extend, I suffer from a perfectionist personality which is why I find working on open ended tasks difficult. I’ll use some examples relating to my writing to illustrate: Should this sentence be structured in a passive voice? Does this paragraph look ok here? Are there enough anecdotes in this article?
Because by their nature there is no distinction between done and not done, an arbitrary open ended task can take anywhere between 1 min and 3 weeks. Time boxing is particularly useful as a reality check when working on open ended tasks. By limiting the time we spend on a given task, as long as it is complete though not perfect, we can objectively decide when something is done. This frees us up to work on the next task.
Effective tool against procrastination
In my experience, people procrastinate for two reasons - firstly, when faced with a complex task they are unsure of how to start and secondly, the prospect of having to do something they’re not particularly interested in doing.
- As a tool against complex tasks: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to work on complex tasks over several iterations or in bite sized chunks. For example, writing a good article is a complex task for me and it is rare to be able to find one block of time in which I can write an article from start to finish. For me, it is more effective to write as best as I can within a fixed period, constantly refining and repeating this process until I finish.
- As a tool against uninteresting things: Time boxing is useful here because it allows us to commit to an undesirable task for only a limited amount of time. It’s a lot easier to start working on something we don’t like if we knew we only need to work on it for the next 30 mins. For example, if you have to clean a messy house, instead of trying to get through the entire house in one go, try only doing as much as you can for 30 mins. When you have another 30 mins to spare another day and feel so inclined, you can continue.
Using free gaps between commitments
The composition of a day from person to person and day to day is different. For some of us, our calendars are completely filled with appointments and meetings. For others, our days are relatively unstructured. Irrespective of our calendars, we often have what I call “null” time. That is, gaps between commitments in which we are either waiting for something or have free brain cycles.
Examples of “null” times are: At the station minutes before the train comes. In the car on a winter morning whilst waiting for the engine to warm up. At the desk, after you have kicked off a full compile on a complex codebase.
Time boxing can be immensely useful during these “null” times. If you knew the train will come soon, the car will warm up in moments or the code will compile in a few mins, you can choose to use that time effectively and work on a relatively simple task you know can be done within that short “null” time.
In conclusion
Time boxing is an effective way for getting things done. By fixing the amount of time we spend on a given set of tasks, we can focus on doing the things that matter, give us motivation to start, prevent overruns and use our “null” times effectively. In contrast, if we worked on things until completion in one sitting, we’re less likely to start on complex tasks, more likely to overrun on open ended tasks and leaves us with less time and motivation to work on the next set of tasks.
If you are interested in finding out more about time boxing, you may find these links useful:
- Wikipedia’s entry on Time boxing
- Time boxing for top team performance
- Steve Pavlina’s perspective on Time boxing
- Four things that reduce software quality
- Managing product development
- Quality Function Deployment
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