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 gonna 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 the world's gold setting under millions of tons of rock much of a gold miner's work doesn't actually involve moving that gold because first they gotta 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 list 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 it's gonna 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 were going through here plus that intro section about gold miners so i broke my task down to draft not finished 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 yet 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 focus 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 diffuse 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 gonna 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 work day which is another piece of evidence to prove that you don't need to wake up at five a.m in the morning and have some kind of hustle crush at 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 and 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 kitchen timer seriously there are more than you can shake a shovel at but i have the sneaking suspicion and i guess i'm gonna be holding this shovel here like a a staff or something but i have the 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 a 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 problem 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 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 library you'll find more than 60 different courses including their calculus and 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 on screen 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 follow-up 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 at tomfrankly thanks as always for watching hopefully you found this helpful and i will see you in the next one