Motivation, Inspiration and Focus

This page is intended as a quick guide & overview to topics, such as: motivation, inspiration & focus. It is however far from perfect, so take what's written here with a pinch of salt...

Focus

Trying to focus on the task at hand can often be quite hard, especially when you aren't in the right frame of mind. I myself struggle from focus issues & often tend to slump back & start watching TV or play games, instead of doing anything productive. Now that would be all fine & good, but once you start to relax, - or numb your mind - it's hard to break away & start doing something productive again. Long breaks & lunch breaks also break focus (as well as workflow), as your body starts to relax & then leaves you feeling unmotivated by the time, you try to resume working again.

Social media, IM chat windows & the internet in general is a large focus killer, because it's a hard habit to break, when you are constantly checking your emails, facebook status or replying to chat messages. I've found out from experience that I'm often more productive when I disable my wifi connection or it goes off for whatever reason. As a quick example: a few years back when I was actively producing music, I hardly ever manage to finish a song, as I found it easy to be distracted by one thing or another. One particular week my internet got disconnected for about a week or so, & in that time I managed to produce & finish 3 whole songs. Even though, they weren't particularly that good, it felt great to finally finish something.

Another focus killer is: having too much on ones plate. By this I mean, it's never a good idea to have too many things on the go at the same time, as you will find it really hard to concentrate, especially if you aren't sure on which task you should be attacking first.

What I've written probably only covers a small portion of focus related issues, but instead of talking about others, I figured I would tell you about a method that will & should help you focus a little better. The method is called...

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is actually relatively straight forward, & all you need is a timer. It could be an egg-timer, a digital timer, a watch with a timer function or even an app on your phone or computer.

What you need to do is create a task list somewhere; a GDD or online task service, such as Wunderlist or Asana, or even a notepad & pencil, will do just fine.

Next you decide on the amount of time (in chunks) that you want to work for, before taking a short break, or carrying on & then you set the timer going for that amount of time, let's say 30 minutes. Once that 30 minutes is up, you set the timer for 5 minutes & take a break or grab a bite to eat, then you set the timer back to 30 minutes again & continue working. In reference to the TV series: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, "Do you think you can make it through the next 10 seconds? It will be over very soon, & then you can start on the next 10 seconds".