- There are three simple
steps that you can take whenever you sit down to work that will reliably help you feel focused and be able to avoid distractions, but almost everyone skips them. In this video, you're
going to learn exactly what those steps are and how to use them. But before we get into
the steps themselves, it'll be helpful to answer
this question first. Why do so many of us find it so hard to focus in the first place? It feels like you should
just be able to pick a task, sit down, and do it. But more often than not, you
find your attention wandering. And there is a reason for this. Getting to that focused
dialed in state of mind is a lot like mining for gold. See gold can technically
be found anywhere. Panners find it in streams,
and on very rare occasions, some lucky soul will find gold under just a few inches of dirt. But most gold, the vast majority on earth, sits much deeper beneath the surface. In South Africa, for example, the deepest gold mine in the world goes down more than two miles into the dirt. And with most of the world's gold sitting under millions of tons of
rock, much of gold miners work doesn't actually involve moving that gold because first they got to get to it. Gold miners understand
intuitively that much of their work involves
moving tons and tons of useless dirt and rock simply so they can position
themselves in the right place. And that focused dialed in state of mind where you do your best
work is just like gold. Sometimes you get lucky
and it comes effortlessly, but that is the exception. And if you think it should
always work this way, you're going to find
yourself falling victim to distractions and being
a lot less productive. Instead, just like those gold miners, you should realize that you usually need to dig deep and work to find your focus. So now, let's equip you with
the shovel, a metaphorical one, because this real one isn't going to be quite as useful in this case. And because I can't
actually hand it to you through the camera. So as it turns out, there
are some proven steps that you can take to do
this digging down process and more reliably reach a state of focus when you're doing your work. And they're actually pretty easy to take, but most people skip them. And if you want to more reliably
get into that flow state, you shouldn't be one of those
people who does the skipping. So the first step is to get truly clear on the very next action
that you need to take. And most people don't do this. If you look at the goal
lists and the to do lists of most people, you're going to see goals like eat healthier and to
do's like write the paper or work on the sales page. And the problem with
goals and tasks like this is that they don't give
you any kind of direction. They don't make it obvious what
the clear very next action, the VNA, if you want to
make a TLA out of it, is. And when you don't have this direction, you'll tend to procrastinate a lot more or you'll bounce between
different tasks in your project and get caught up in multitasking. So instead, first try
to get that direction and a very easy way to do this
is to go through an exercise that I like to call a five-minute prep. True to its name, this doesn't involve any
actual work on your task. Instead, what you want to do
is try to get that direction. So take five minutes or
maybe even set a timer for five minutes and soak
in the details of your task. Specifically, you're
looking for a few things. Number one, you're trying
to break the task down until you have a clear,
obvious, very next action. Number two, you want to make
sure that the estimated time to complete this action
is something reasonable. If it's going to take all day, try to break it down even further. And finally soak in the
details of the task itself, but also any important context in the larger project as a whole. So here's an example of a five-minute prep that I went through yesterday. Initially my task was write
the script for this very video, but I've been doing
this long enough to know that writing a video script
takes me a really long time. So the first thing I
did was break it down. I knew that there were
several sections of the video, namely the three steps that
we're going through here, plus that intro section about gold miners. So I broke my task down to
draft, not finish, but draft, that intro section about how gold mining is similar to achieving focus in my work. And I knew that I could do
that in a single session, at least get a couple
of paragraphs written. So that defined my very
clear, very next action. Once you have this direction, the next step very well may
be to simply buckle down and start working on it. And if you feel motivated,
you feel focused, then that is exactly what you should do, but that is actually
step three in our process and we'll get to it later
because sometimes you're not in the right state of mind to sit down and focus on your work. This is because your brain
has two important modes of thinking and you spend
time in both of them. And it's important to do this. In her book, A Mind for Numbers, the author Barbara Oakley
calls these the focused and the diffused modes of thinking. Now focused mode is exactly
what it sounds like. It's the prefrontal cortex heavy mode that allows you to logically
work through problems. It's great for getting work done, but it's not so good at
letting your mind relax. And it's also not very good
at thinking creatively, at sort of stepping back
and making connections between seemingly disparate elements. This is the domain of the diffused mode. In the book, Oakley likens
this to a pinball table where the bumpers are
really well spaced out. And this allows the ball, which
in this case is your ideas, to bounce all around the
table and get exposure to basically every area. By contrast, the focused mode is more like a very tight cluster of bumpers that keeps the ball in
one tiny little area, namely your prefrontal cortex. So by stepping back and
getting into the diffused mode, ideas can sort of background process. They can bounce around to all
different parts of your brain, and that's how you make
more creative connections. And my favorite way to
do this is very simple. Go for a 20-minute walk, or maybe take a nap, or clean your room. Do something that lets your brain relax and not have to intensely
focus on any one thing. Doing this will get you into that mode. And you're going to make
some more connections that you often wouldn't
make in that focused mode. Now, once you're done with that walk or whatever you did to get
into the diffused mode, it is now time to come back
and actually get to work. And it's here that I want to share one of my all-time favorite quotes, which is attributed to the
author William Faulkner. "I only write when I'm inspired. Fortunately I am inspired
every day at nine o'clock." I love this quote for
two different reasons. First and foremost, he
mentions nine o'clock as his start time for the workday, which is another piece
of evidence to prove that you don't need to wake
up at 5:00 AM in the morning and have some kind of hustle
crush it morning routine to be successful. You can get up at a normal time and still be perfectly productive. But secondly, I love his mention about how he is inspired every
single day at nine o'clock. Faulkner understood exactly what those gold miners understand, that to get to a focused place, to get to where the rewards really are, you have to put in a little
bit of prep work first. Or to phrase it the way I
did on Twitter the other day. And this is pretty corny,
but I'm standing by it. Don't wait for the
muses to smile upon you. Tell jokes until you get them to laugh. And the most reliable
way that I have found to do this is to use a timer. Now you already have your
clear, very next action defined from step one. So at this point, just
set a timer for 25 minutes and commit to working only on
that task as best as you can. This is the classic Pomodoro Technique and it works so well because
you're reframing the task and reducing the amount of resistance that your brain feels to starting it. Instead of I have to finish
this entire task no matter what, it's all I have to do
is work for 25 minutes. And the benefit here isn't
simply getting 25 minutes of work done. It's getting into the middle
of that focused session. As a writer, I know after
writing 200 video scripts, 300 blog posts, and a book
that the most effective and the most useful writing always comes at least 10 or 15 minutes
into a writing session. Now there is an inconvenient truth here, which is that the first 10 or 15 minutes is usually useless and
I have to throw it away, but that's the price I pay
to actually get my brain into a state where the good
stuff actually comes out. And using a timer is what helps
me get there most reliably. It externalizes my self discipline. It makes it much easier
to simply start working. Now, there are a ton of
Pomodoro apps out there, so you don't have to use a
regular little kitchen timer. Seriously, there are more than
you can shake a shovel at, but I have the sneaking
suspicion and I guess I'm going to be holding this shovel here,
like a staff or something, but I have this sneaking suspicion that the best Pomodoro timer in the world is actually a very old school hourglass. And this is because an
hourglass lets you set a timer, but that timer never goes off. Or at least it never goes off in a way that gets your attention. And this is actually quite
useful because I have found through years of doing Pomodoro sessions that I almost never stop
working and take a break when that 25 minute timer goes off. Really the point of
the Pomodoro session is to simply convince my
brain to start working and get to the point where I am mining that metaphorical gold. And once I'm there, I can work for a lot
longer than 25 minutes. So experiment with doing this. Either get yourself an hourglass or experiment with simply
silencing the timer when it goes off and see
if you can push yourself just a little bit further. Now it's worth noting that
while these three steps are very effective, they
may not be the only things that you need to do because everyone has their
own unique challenges and problems when it comes
to focus and creativity. So you may want to analyze what yours are and try to come up with some new solutions that are tailored specifically to you. For example, I have
found that as a writer, I have a lot more writer's block and I find it much harder
to get into the zone when I feel like I'm writing on what is the final draft of the project. I'm looking at the script
right here in notion and trying to write on
this is difficult for me. So a lot of times I'll open
up a brand new document where I feel a lot less pressure and I can just sort of
brain dump my thoughts. Then I can clean them up later and bring them back into that final draft. It's something that
works very well for me. And this applies to any
other problems you want to solve as well. Instead of always sticking
to the established methods, it's often better to dig
into the details yourself and figure out a brand new solution. This type of problem
solving is a useful skill that can benefit you in
both your professional and your personal lives. And it's also something
that you can practice. And one great resource
for getting that practice is Brilliant who have
kindly sponsored this video. Brilliant is an interactive
learning platform that helps you master math,
science, and computer science. And all of their courses are filled with interactive puzzles and quizzes that ensure you're learning
actively the entire time, instead of just watching long videos or reading walls of text. And when you're learning like this, not only are you constantly working on your problem solving skills, but you also have more fun and you retain what you learn a lot more easily. In Brilliant's library you'll find more than 60 different courses, including their Calculus
in a Nutshell course, which breaks down calculus and makes it a lot easier to understand. And you'll also find science courses like this one on gravitational physics and computer science courses like their Algorithm Fundamentals course. So if you want to start learning today and also support this channel, you can go over to
brilliant.org/ThomasFrank to sign up or use that link onscreen
that should be right there. And if you're one of the first 200 people to use that link with this video, you're even going to get 20% off their annual premium subscription. If you're looking for
something else to watch, you might like my video on the Five Levels of
Self-discipline right there, which is a great followup to this video. And last but not least leave
a like for the algorithm. And if you want more bite-sized content, you may also want to follow me on Twitter over @TomFrankly. Thanks as always for watching. Hopefully you found this helpful and I will see you in the next one.
