Build Discipline and Focus

We all love motivation. It is a mental state that provides us with energy and enough positive feeling to work on tasks that we need to complete. Yet motivation is fickle and very often strikes at the wrong times. It happens to me often where I will feel very motivated to complete a particular task while I am walking home, but as soon as I arrive, I no longer feel compelled to take action. I am sure I’m not the only one to experience this phenomenon.

What’s happening when this occurs is that you are attuned to the feeling of motivation which satisfies the anxiety or excitement you had to work on the task. You feel so good that you’re motivated that the desire to actually work on the task subsides. Why work on it when you already feel great about having been motivated?

Well that clearly doesn’t help anyone out. Instead it is important to foster discipline and focus so that you don’t have to rely on motivation (since it is so unreliable anyway).

So how can this be done? How can discipline and focus be built up and used as powerful tools for getting what you want and what you need completed?

Get Disciplined

Discipline takes mental strength and just like physical strength it is built up over time with repetition. Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly makes discipline. Here are a few practical points to consider for building your discipline.

Commit to A Schedule

It works with classes and jobs, so applying it to a task list or other projects should work as well. When you sit down and plan your days and weeks, you are making firm decisions about when you will commit to work. Scheduling tasks you want to do next to tasks with strict deadlines can provide enough pressure to work on both. A schedule also over time takes away the effort required to start. Eventually, you will be able to jump right into regularly planned tasks without the need to do any conscious thought about starting; you will just know that it is time to work.

Set Tight Time Constraints

This tactic may be necessary when you really don’t want to do anything. If you give yourself 1 hour to complete a task that without any pressure might take you 3, it is very likely that you will work through the entire hour and complete (or nearly complete) what you needed. This method artificially creates pressure similar to the pressure that motivates so many people when deadlines are approaching. All you are doing is setting a strict deadline and enforcing it to yourself.

Of course, for this to work you must be honest with yourself. If you find this particularly difficult, the best thing for it is practice. Start by imposing strict deadlines on your hobbies (this works particularly well for creative pursuits such as writing and drawing) and eventually move on from there to assignments for school, or regularly assigned work at your job.

If you still struggle in keeping your own tight deadlines, you may be able to set up bargains with yourself. Basically you generate an if-then statement with the following format:

IF [task] is completed in [short time frame] THEN [reward].

Choose your reward wisely as you don’t want your good use of discipline to also foster bad habits (don’t always use cookies as reward food).

Forget How you Feel

Don’t listen to your emotions when you need to get work done because your emotions will fluctuate throughout the day and even throughout any task you work on. If you really don’t want to start something, get over it. It’s harsh, but it works.

Think back to a time when you had to complete something truly undesirable. While you were working it is very likely that you were not really feeling good or bad. Any time you took a break it may have been the case that you started hating the task again, but when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t have time or energy to worry about how you feel anyway. Peter Drucker (the founder of modern management) says it best:

Never mind your happiness. Do your duty. - Peter Drucker

Don’t dismiss emotions; you can feel them all after you are done your work, but you can’t trust them to help you along the way.

Stay Focused

Focus is having the mental fortitude to block out all stimuli (physical and mental) that are not relevant to the task that is being worked on. Focus is an indispensable tool that allows for effective use of time and will also leave you with a sense of satisfaction.

Everyone has the ability to focus, but the duration of focus periods varies drastically from person to person. Many people have trouble focusing for long periods of time which is very frustrating when work needs doing. Every time focus is broken and re-initiated it takes a little more conscious effort. Through building your focus you can reduce the amount of conscious effort needed to pull yourself back into working on the task so that more energy can be used directly on the task. This state of mind is sometimes referred to as flow and it is fantastic.

First things first, it is wise to test your own ability to focus.

Test your Focus

In order to judge if you are improving on your focus it is necessary to have a baseline of acceptable focus ability. I wrote down a while ago the baseline of focus that I set for myself. It is a level of focus that is already quite functional as it lets me get the majority of my tasks completed in a timely fashion and it was close to exactly how long I could focus at the time.

The focus baseline:

• The minimum level of focus necessary to perform adequately in school and work is being able to read for 1 hour.
  • you should be reading a BOOK, not an internet article or stream of articles as every new article ‘resets’ your focus.
  • you should be able to do this whether or not the reading is compelling or dull.
• You should be able to write about a single topic for 30 minutes without a break.
• Physical tasks requiring great concentration and attention should be focused on for 30 minutes

Consider this baseline for yourself. Can you even imagine completing this successfully? You don’t have to LIKE doing it, but I maintain that this baseline focus is a very necessary and beneficial skill to have.

Focus Training

So we have a baseline, now we need a method to get you there and then to improve beyond that. I build my focus using timers and breaks.

1. Set a timer
   • You can change the duration to fit your current focus ability
   • If a task is complete before the timer runs out, start the next one
2. Work on your task
   • Have only a single task in mind to complete in the allotted time
   • DO NOT MULTITASK. It doesn’t work.
3. After the timer goes off, take a 5 minute break
   • Make sure the break is unrelated to the task, to actually give your mind a rest

Discipline and Focus Together

When working on your discipline and focus, be stern yet forgiving with yourself. As is true with most things worthwhile, discipline and focus don’t come easy and they don’t come quickly. Practice and patience will be necessary.

However, it is well worth the struggle. Discipline can get you started on anything you need or want to complete and focus can keep you going. The combination of these two skills will provide you with a framework to tackle any work you may end up in, any hobbies you want to excel at, and any commitments you have made to other people.

Focus and Discipline will get you far.