How To Increase Focus On Your Business When Your Life Is In Chaos
Learn how to increase focus on your business and how to stay focused as an entrepreneur when starting and growing a business in challenging times.
Women entrepreneurs face a lot of distractions in our day-to-day lives. From the expectations of juggling our family responsibilities, caring for our kids and family members, to dealing with challenges in relationships, it’s hard to know how to concentrate on work without getting distracted.
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown our world into chaos and brought stress, anxiety, and depression in its wake. This makes it harder to make time for your business, especially as a woman or busy mom in charge of taking care of sick family members, children, and the elderly.
So, can you learn how to focus on work and how to increase focus on your business when your life is in chaos? Yes, it’s possible, but it takes the effort and determination to learn new skills.
It’s not just about learning how to increase concentration power, but also learning how to focus in the age of distraction and acquiring the emotional and mental resilience to help you learn how to deal with life’s challenges.
In order to become a successful businesswoman when facing challenges in your business and life, you need to understand how anxiety affects your focus, learn how to increase focus and concentration and how to stay focused in business.
In this article, you’ll learn how to stay focused starting a business and what skills will help you learn how to stay focused in business growth and expansion.
1. Remember your “Why”
Remembering the WHY – the reason and purpose you started a business – can help you figure out how to get your focus back when life throws you a curveball.
Whether you’re a single mom trying to provide for yourself and your kids, or a housewife whose income helps run the household, having a powerful WHY can keep you going even when the world around is falling apart.
Ask yourself, “Why am I doing what I’m doing? Why is this business essential to my life?” and your mind will help you figure out how to focus on making money in your business.
2. Learn emotional self-regulation
The stress and social isolation of the pandemic has created anxiety and depression even in people who had no prior history of mental illness. Many of us have had to double up as nurses to ailing family members, or may have fallen ill ourselves.
All of us need new tools for coping with emotional challenges and learning how to focus on the positive, so all the bad news in the world doesn’t drag us down.
As women, we also feel very disturbed when our relationships are not going well and are unable to focus on work when going through domestic issues or a breakup.
To prevent your work and business from suffering due to relationship issues, you must learn how to focus on yourself in a relationship, and how to focus on yourself after a breakup.
Practicing mindfulness to boost emotional self-regulation is one of the best ways to learn how to increase your concentration power, get your mind to focus on the positives and manage anxiety and depression.
A mindfulness meditation practice will help you calm your mind and learn how to manage your emotions better so that you don’t experience the roller-coaster ride of emotional stress that can distract you from your business goals.
Mindfulness will also help you build mental clarity and self-awareness and learn how to increase attention span, so you can stay focused on your goals when starting and growing your business.
If you’re going through a lot of emotional stress and believe that talking to a counsellor will help, you can chat with a professional counsellor on the Ask SHEROES helpline for women.
3. Sharpen your focus and concentration power
Learning how to increase your concentration power and how to focus your mind on one task is a powerful skill that every entrepreneur needs to learn.
Here are some tips to get your brain to focus and concentrate on one thing so you can get more work done in less time.
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Don’t multi-task
Women are always told that we’re great at multi-tasking, but research has shown that multitasking can actually reduce productivity by as much as 40% because our brains are not as good at handling multiple tasks as we like to think they are.
Learning how to focus on one thing at a time is a superpower that will help you focus on deep work when you need to get more done in less time.
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Embrace boredom
If we’re distracted in every moment - whether by our phones or screens or dealing with everyday issues - those moments of distraction and overstimulation build up and accumulate to create a life that feels more distracted and overwhelming.
In his TED Talk, Chris Bailey, author of the book, Hyperfocus, recommends disconnecting from the internet and rediscovering boredom. You can do this every day or every week for a few hours depending on what works for you.
When we become less stimulated and make our mind calmer, we reap the benefits of added productivity, focus, new ideas, and creativity, and also live a better life because of it.
In this video, Michael Hyatt recommends taking a break and being bored in order to spark your creativity and come up with new ideas. He also swears by the benefits of a good night’s sleep in helping you rejuvenate your mind.
As a writer, one of the things that help me maintain hyper-focus when writing is to avoid looking at my phone until I’m done. This helps me concentrate on my train of thought and write better and faster.
4. Use a productivity planner
As a busy business owner, you have only so many hours in the day to get things done. In your quest to learn how to focus on business goals, a productivity planner can help you achieve more by doing less.
A productivity planner is a journal that tracks your schedule, the work you complete, as well as your productivity.
There are many free productivity apps online, such as Todoist, and paid productivity apps, like the Full Focus Planner, that will help you take control of the time you have to work on your business.
5. Practice self-care
For women entrepreneurs, learning how to focus on yourself takes some practice. Here are some tips to help you practice self-care so you can focus on your business.
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Create a “not-to-do” list
Learning how to prioritize and delegate work is an essential entrepreneurial skill. Decide what tasks only you can do and delegate or outsource the rest to an assistant or to willing family members.
As an entrepreneur, your time is money, so don’t focus on tasks that someone else can do better or for a lower price. Automate all tasks that can be automated and outsource tasks, such as web design and social media management, to a competent person.
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Learn to say NO
Productivity is more about energy management than time management and, according to Warren Buffett, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say No to almost everything.”
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say No to almost everything.”
Be protective of your time and energy and only focus on the things you love doing and the things you’re really good at. There are definitely times when you should say NO to things so you can maximize your efficiency and be your most productive self.
For example, don’t feel bad to hire a cook or order take-out food when you have to. You can cook on weekends, if you enjoy it, and spend the time you save working on growing your business.
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Get enough sleep
Scientists have found that sleep deprivation leads to lower alertness and concentration making it more difficult to focus and pay attention. Sleep-deprived people are more easily confused and show impaired judgment.
As an entrepreneur, lack of sleep can hamper your ability to learn new things and perform tasks that require logical reasoning or complex thought. Many busy moms are sleep-deprived, especially when they have small kids or ailing family members.
Catching up on your sleep with a power nap in the afternoons or getting a good night’s sleep is essential if you want to increase focus on your business and get things done.
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Train your family to help out
Instead of trying to be a superwoman, just accept that you don’t need to do every household task yourself.
You need to train your kids – and even your husband and family members – to take over some of the household tasks, like cleaning up and helping out with household chores.
Read the articles below for more self-care tips to work at home productively without compromising your health and well-being:
- 21-step self-care checklist for work-at-home moms
- 10 essential self-care tips for female entrepreneurs
6. Create a comfortable home office space
Having a comfortable space to work and a productive home office setup is very important for women entrepreneurs who work from home.
Having your own space apart from your family space can greatly help you boost your focus, concentration, and productivity. You could turn a spare bedroom into a home office if you need more space to help you focus better.
Get your home office space organised and make sure you have ergonomic home office furniture and all the home office essentials you need to help you be more focused and efficient.
7. Celebrate your successes
On the journey to becoming a successful woman entrepreneur or businesswoman, it’s often important to remember how to focus on yourself and not others.
Taking the time to celebrate your successes, even the small ones – such as getting a new sale or customer – will give your brain the reward it seeks to keep you going.
Buying yourself a gift or treating yourself in an enjoyable way will help you learn how to focus on yourself and be happy, and spur you on to even greater business success.
Learning how to increase focus and how to increase your concentration, productivity, and efficiency in a chaotic world are essential skills that will help you grow your business faster and help you become a successful businesswoman.
Every woman entrepreneur goes through challenging times when starting and growing a business. But, as Chris Bailey notes in his TED Talk, our ability to focus is the key to productivity, creativity, and living a meaningful life.
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