10 Reasons You Lose Focus
Are you losing focus? Is your productivity falling off? Here are 10 of the most common reasons.
You get too wild on payday
You get paid on Friday and party from the time the cash hits your bank until you have to be back at work on Monday morning. For two and half days you try to win the gold, silver and bronze medal for beer pong. You have a vague memory of dancing with some co-eds from the University of Texas at a country line dance bar called the Whiskey-Filled Boot, and you just now realized it is located 700 miles from your home.
You love to sleep too much
It’s hard to stay focused on your goals when all you can think about is going to sleep and waking up and not knowing what time it is, 4 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning. Is it Wednesday or Thursday? Is it dark outside or are the blinds shut so tight sunlight couldn’t slip in there if it was greased with olive oil and Quaker State 10-W40. Sleep is critical for staying sharp, enhancing creativity and leading with confidence, but you love sleep TOO much. That’s why you ordered a new bed that guarantees you’ll be able to sleep soundly in the middle of Electric Daisy Carnival.
You aren’t getting any exercise
Is your idea of exercise walking to the mailbox at the end of the driveway every day to see if you won the Publishers Clearing House $10,000 a week for life prize? Or may you are hoping an previously unknown uncle in Scotland will die and leave you a castle near Edinburgh overlooking the North Sea, complete with 17 bedrooms, 25 bathrooms, a 15-car garage and sunken dance floor featuring live performance by the Bee Gees.
You are working too hard
It’s great you know how to put your nose to the grindstone to achieve your goals. It’s better than sitting around smoking Lucky Strikes and hoping a cumulonimbus cloud will move through your house and rain money. But there’s a limit. If you are working so hard you are sleeping on your desk with your head propped up on the inkjet printer, nodding off to sleep to the strains of Etta James coming through your Bose speakers; if you are napping on a hammock hanging from the ceiling made of towels you’ve sewn together with bailing twine and fishing line; if you haven’t seen your family for months on end, to the point when you walk in the door they call in a break-in, you are working too much.
Your walk the dog 3 times a day
Everybody loves you dog Mr. Wiggums. He’s adorable and he love to go on walks. But once a day is enough. If you are interrupting your projects because precious Mr. Wiggums walks to you with his leash in his mouth because he wants to go on ANOTHER walk, things are out of control. I mean, you already took him on a long walk to the movies, smuggling him in your gym bag to see “A Dog’s Purpose,” his favorite flick, for the 329th time.
You spend too much time cleaning
You cant focus when you constantly look around the room, feeling anxious that the carpet just needs a little more vacuuming, the desk just needs a little dusting, and gee those blinds need to be wiped down. It doesn’t matter that your place is spotless, so clean hospital down the street asked if they could do surgeries in your living room. The fact is it FEELS like it needs more cleaning because you have a mental hang-up about everything being super clean. Do yourself a favor and go roll around in the dirt outside, put on some George Straight tunes, and sit down and get some work done.
You are distracted by hobbies
Wow, that is a great vase you made on your pottery wheel. You have a real talent. Not only that, you are getting really good at playing guitar. Thank goodness for all those YouTube videos. But you are really excited about your fast-improving cooking skills. It wasn’t that long ago the hardest dish you tackled was scrambled eggs with tomatoes and chorizo. Look at you now! Preparing roasted chicken in a Dutch Oven and then turning the leftovers into a pasta salad. Great! But your hobbies are keeping you from actually getting any work done. At least you’ll be well fed.
You get too much exercise
Sure, some people don’t work out at all which isn’t good, but you are the opposite. You get up at 330am to run 45 miles while listening to Tony Robins motivational talks. Back home, you’ll go through all 75 stations of your full body work out machine, hitting every muscle in your body from 3 directions, even the muscles that allow you to wiggle your ears so rapidly you can blow out birthday candles. Finally, you’ll have a light bowl of high-protein granola mix with a splash of almond milk, taking bites on every downstroke of 350 pushups you’ll complete in 3 minutes.
You can’t get off social media
Sure, you should be on social media. It’s almost impossible to meet anyone these days who is not on social media at all. Your problem is you are on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tik Tok and ten other social platforms every minute of every day. Remember that time you went to the mall and you forgot your phone at home? When you realized what happened you had trouble breathing and almost passed out while trying on some new tennis shoes at Macy’s. The salesperson realized what was happening and handed you his phone so you could check how many likes you got on your latest Instagram story. You recovered and walked down to the Apple store to buy 17 more iPhones, so you always have a backup.
You watch too much TV
Everybody has a favorite TV show or two. Your problem is you have 457 favorite shows. You’ve got the full cable package, satellite service, Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Apple TV, Roku, Sling, and 39 other platforms. Your cable bill is $900 dollars a month in addition to the $1700 you spend on Netflix and its clones. When you aren’t watching the latest shows, you dissect them online in chat groups on Facebook and Reddit, discussing which Bachelorette will get the boot next or which Real Housewife will get in a drag out fight in the middle of Bloomingdale’s. While driving in traffic, you come up with new shows in your head like RuPaul’s Hell’s Kitchen or Dancing with the Shark Tank Stars.
