Focus! I chide my mentally slap myself to focus on the assignment at hand. Two hours have passed since I started, and yet there are only few lines to show for progress. What more? The assignment is due in two hours.

Oh no! I am doomed! Some days are like that. But if is a permanent state of mind, you would find yourself in trouble quite often with pending tasks and unmet deadlines.

But whenever you are able to focus, deadlines look less intimidating, tasks get ticked off from your to-do list easily, work flows easily and effortlessly and there are results, or at least progress, to show at the end of the day.

However, this is an ideal scenario to work under. Too often, there are a slew of urgent tasks, one after another, and a bunch of obstacles and distractions to navigate through. So, before the day is over, there is very little progress and you already feel exhausted and mentally defeated. 

Hence, focus, calmness and productivity are precious commodities in a fast paced world full of gadgets and distractions.

Why Work Focus is Important

Focus is the navigational star for success. It is that precious mental state where the end goal is clear in mind and you have laid out a meticulous plan to achieve it. So, no matter what distractions and obstacles stand in the way, you work with singular focus towards your end result. To iterate, you would be determined to work past everything to achieve your set goals and show progress and results.

Contrarily, if you are distracted, you would procrastinate and create needless scenarios in your mind to complicate things. In short, your mind would be everywhere except on the task at hand. Your thoughts would be controlling your mind instead of it being the other way around.

Your mind would be just like a little child running away from homework. More importantly, no matter which resources and facilitating factors would be at your disposal, you would still find excuses to delay the task. Eventually, you would falter and fail. And you have no one to blame at the end of the day but yourself.

Image credit: Mikhail Nilov@Pexels

How Meditation Can Help You Sharpen Your Focus

Some people are born with a natural and intuitive ability to focus. Meanwhile, others have to learn it, and hone and sharpen it periodically through control and practice. Meditation is one such technique that can help us regain and sharpen our focus.

Meditation is popularly seen as a mindfulness practice to reduce stress and anxiety and create a calm state of mind. However, certain meditative practices like focused breath work and counting can help you heighten your awareness of the moment, thereby helping you focus better on the here and now and the tasks needing your attention.

Walk meditation is another mindfulness method that can effectively reduce anxiety clear away thought clutter, replenish the mental and physical energy. However, for someone with procrastinating tendencies, the walk may prove to be another distraction, taking one away from urgent tasks. Some people may even end up abandoning the task they intended to do after the meditative walk. In comparison, in meditative breathwork, the breath serves as a home base to which one repeatedly return. Furthermore, one doesn’t need to step away from one’s work physically for practicing meditative breath work. 

In breath work, the coordinated work between your mind and your breathing would help your mind and body to work in a better way. This means that the mind and body both would experience less anxiety and stress. Consequently, the mind would be able to stop getting fixated on a problem, would have clarity, instead of clutter, and will try to focus on finding the solution of that problem.

Focused Breath Work Meditative Exercise 

Meditation that comprises conscious breathwork can be of different types, comprising different time spans from 1 minute to 15 minutes. Nevertheless, the basics are the same:

• Sit up in a comfortable position. If you are at home, you can sit on the ground and cross your legs.
• But if you are in your office, assume a comfortable posture in your office chair, straighten your spine and shoulders and ground your feet on the floor. Kick off the shoes if you can.
• Take a deep breath and start counting each of your breath backwards from 10 to 1. If you are hugely distracted, then you need to count more than that. For instance, from 50 – 1 or even 100 – 1.
• With each count, inhale and then exhale with the next count.
• Make a conscious effort to breathe deeply and thoroughly.
• Let each number flash through clearly in your imagination.
• Continue counting backwards till you reach one. 
• Repeat if necessary.
• Once you are done, exhale and start focusing on the task at hand.
• Resist the tendency to procrastinate and write down or perform the 1^st step. Don’t delay!

To Sum Up

The everyday the need to be more productive and the struggles are very real and frustrating. However, breathwork meditation is one mindfulness technique that really helps when you have important tasks and projects. But you find yourself so underwhelmed or overwhelmed with ideas or energy that you can’t make yourself going. In situations like these, mindful breath work helps us regain our focus and get the productivity flow going.

In addition, meditation doesn’t only help us get the tasks done! Meditative practice replenishes our mental energy and focus, sparks imagination and creativity. Therefore, it promotes innovative thinking and the problem-solving attitude. Thus, making breathwork meditation a regular part of your routine shows a willingness and resolve to harness your productivity.