 We have basically been waking up and training ourselves to be distracted. We are professionals at being distracted. Can't we train ourselves to be focused? Today, we're going to be talking about how to be more focused. And I'm going to teach you seven steps to staying more focused with everything that you do throughout the day. Because as we know, focus is going to dictate how much you're going to get done throughout the day. And we live in a world that is really, really hard to stay focused in. Why? Because everything is literally at our fingertips right now. And we can get people that can message us. We can get people that can come through. They can send us a text message. They can send us an email that can come to our door. They can make a phone call on me. Literally, we can be so distracted. And so you have to realize that distraction is basically something that we've created. Focus is a skill that you need to work on. And before I give you the actual keys to being more focused, what I'm going to tell you is this. Think of it this way. If you have decided that you want to be a professional basketball player and you wake up every single morning and you work for 18, let's say 16 hours a day. You sleep for eight hours. You work for 16 hours. Really hard every single day at being a basketball player. In six months, even if you've never picked up a basketball when you start, in six months, if you work for 16 hours a day, you're going to be a really, really good basketball player within six months. You're not going to be LeBron James, but you're going to be good because in six months, every single day you put 16 hours of work in, you're going to be great, aren't you? And this goes with anything, but you have to realize we have basically been waking up and training ourselves to be distracted. We wake up, we go to our phone, we're distracted. We have emails, we have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have phone calls, we have text messages. We literally wake up and get distracted and we stay distracted the entire day. We are professionals at being distracted. We've trained ourselves to be distracted. That's what's crazy about it. But if that's the case, can't we train ourselves to be focused? We can untrain ourselves and we can train ourselves to be focused. We can wake up and actually have the intention of being focused every single day and work at that every single day as well. And that's what I'm going to help you with is how to make sure that you stay focused with everything that you do through these seven tips. Tip number one is super simple, but I'm going to give you a little extra tip on top of it to make it even better. Wake up in the morning and spend five minutes making a to-do list. The way I like to do my to-do list is I like to just sit in silence. Sometimes I close my eyes as if I'm meditating and I just sit there and I just think and allow the things to come into my head and I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to call her today. Oh my gosh, I've got to get that project done. I've got to record that video. I've got to get the podcast done. Every single little teeny tiny thing I write down. There is nothing that pops in my head that I don't write down. Laundry could pop up. I have to write it down. And I make this massive to-do list knowing that I'm probably not going to get all of it done. And in fact, I don't know if I've ever in my entire life, 34 years, completed a to-do list, but that's okay. Because it doesn't matter about what you get, like how many things you get done, what matters is the importance of things you get done. And so I know a lot of people that were created to-do list and hey, I know some of you guys listening have done this before. You create a to-do list and then you go and do something that's not on the to-do list and you come back to the to-do list and you write it down and you cross it off just so you have that feeling of, hey, I just did something, right? Yeah, we've all done it before. Here's the key. If it's not on the to-do list, it's probably not the most important thing. And so what I would say is make your to-do list and then here's the key, ready? You take your to-do list and you circle your three most important things for that day. And what you do is you figure out what is number one. You figure out what is number two and you figure out what is number three as far as what are the most important. And what you do is you take a little three-by-five card, a cue card, and you write down number one, number two, and number three. And what do you do? You take that and put it in your back pocket so that you have it with you all day long. Therefore, you don't have to go find your to-do list. You don't have to look at your phone for your to-do list because we've all done it before. You pick up your phone to do something. 30 minutes later, you're on Instagram, you realize you've been scrolling through your stuff and you're like, what the hell have I been doing? I don't even remember what I picked up my phone for in the first place. It was for the to-do list, right? And so what you do is you go old school. You find out the to-do list, find out what's number one, two, and three. And then on a cue card, you write down number one, number two, and number three. And you put it in your back pocket so you have it with you at all times. So that's tip number one, to-do list and a cue card. Tip number two deals with that and what it is is to eat the frog first. There's a book that was by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog. And what it means is eat the frog first thing in the morning because nobody wants to eat a frog. And so usually what that means is that the thing that you need to do the most, the thing that is of the highest importance to you today was probably also the highest importance to you yesterday in the day before, in the day before. But you've been resisting, you've been putting it off. And so what you do is you have the mindset of I'm going to eat that frog first thing in the morning. I'm gonna get it done right away. And what you do is you conquer the number one thing on your to-do list first. Why do you do that? Well, psychologically, when you have that thing out of the way, it makes sure the rest of your day is so much easier. Also, it's a win first thing in the morning. And when you have a win first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is so much easier. You're so much more productive. You have the I'm going to get it done attitude and it's a win because imagine if you just got the most important thing done every single day. And that was the only thing that you did all day long. A year from now, you're gonna be much further ahead than you normally are. And the reason why is because you're not putting off the most important things. You're just getting it done. You're just executing. And you've developed the psychological mindset of I'm just going to get it done because it's got to be done. So that's what number two is, is to make sure that you eat the frog first thing in the morning. As soon as you start working, as soon as you get done showering, as soon as you're going straight into it, as soon as you show up to work, whatever it is, eat the frog, get it done. Psychologically, it'll make your day so much easier. You'll feel so much more accomplished. You'll feel so much more productive and then it'll be happier with the results at the end of the day. So that's number two. Number three is to set your intention for the day. If you listen back to a couple episodes ago, I talked about setting an intention every single day. I like to call this like your daily mission. What is my mission for today? It could be a goal that you want and you want to hit that goal. That's your main mission for the day. It could be that you want to stay away from your phone completely and so maybe what you do is you put your phone inside the closet and you leave it there all day long so that you can just get stuff done. So maybe your intention is just be away from your phone so you can be productive. Maybe it could be you just want to be happier today and so I'm going to try to bring happiness into everything that I do. I'm going to try to do things that make me happier. I'm going to try to find the positive in everything that I do which will make me feel better and make me feel happier. It could be maybe I want to be 100% present with my children today. Maybe it's a Saturday. You've got the kids school. You know you got to finish up a couple projects and then you got to go to soccer with them and you're like you know what I just want to be fully present for my children today. That could be an intention. So what's your daily mission? Maybe it's that you've got a project that you got to complete and it's like today it is just this project and I'm dedicating my entire day to this and the reason why it's really good to have an intention for the day is because it makes it really easy to say yes and to say no to things. One of the problems that a lot of people have is saying no to things that they don't need to say yes to. Right so they say yes to things but they don't really need to say yes to it and now they've got extra on their plate because they don't want to let somebody down or they don't want to seem like they can't do it or they don't want to make themselves feel like they're not good enough. Whatever it is. It's different for everybody but when you have a daily mission and you're like this is what today's mission is this is what I'm working at and you know what it is. Then it makes it way easier to say no to things which allow you to focus on today's mission. So you know for instance let's say that today's mission is that you've got to complete this project for work or for school. The project has to be complete and then somebody comes in and says hey do you want to go to lunch. I love to. Can we do it tomorrow because I have to get this project done. It's my mission for the day. Let's say like I said that your goal is to make sure that you are as present as possible with your children today and you know that's what you need to focus on. You've got soccer then you've got softball after for your daughter and you've got to do these things. And then something pops up and you say you know what maybe tomorrow because today is my children's day. Today I want to be the best father or the best mother that I can be. So how about tomorrow. We can work on XYZ. Do you see how that makes it easier. Makes it easier to say yes because then if it does line up with it you can say yes and then it makes it easier to say no and you don't have to feel like you're ever letting people down. All you have to do is say hey what about tomorrow because today I have to get this done. Today my focus is this. Today my mission is this. And people tend to understand when they see how focused you are on something. So that's number three is to set your intention set your daily mission. So hit that like button and I appreciate you. Number four is something you may have never thought of before is to make less decisions. Make less decisions. You know when people think of Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world the guy who owns Amazon he also owns Whole Foods right. He's the richest man in the world. And people think man I can't even imagine how much he has to do on a daily basis. Being worth I don't know how much money is like almost 200 billion dollars whatever it is. I read an article it says that he tries to make no more than three decisions during the day. That's it. Three decisions and the reason why is because decision making actually takes up so much energy of the brain. And if you're trying to make decisions and putting so much energy into decision making and you have fires coming at you and maybe you've been in reactive mode for so long you got to make decisions on this this this this this that's requiring your brain to think harder which is using more energy which means that you're not showing up 100% later on in the day. And so how can you make less decisions throughout the day? How can you set up your life to make less decisions? Something to think about it's different for everybody. Some people might have an assistant and it's easier to make less decisions. Some people you might be a teacher at a school and it's harder for you but there is a way for every single person listening to this to make less decisions. So the question I have for you is how can you make less decisions and spend more time executing instead of thinking? That's one way to be really highly focused because decisions take energy. That's number four. Number five, turn off your freaking notifications please. It's so simple but for some reason people are addicted to their notifications. They're addicted to when someone likes something of theirs on Instagram they get a notification when their favorite YouTuber puts up a video they get a notification when you know they have a text message from a friend they get a notification when they get a phone call whatever it is. I always say and I'm not perfect with this but here's my recommendation the only way that you're going to get any sort of I'm going to get any notification that you're trying to get in touch with me on my phone is if you call me. That's it. If you send me a text message my phone doesn't light up. If you send me an Instagram message my phone doesn't light up. If you like my Instagram posts my phone doesn't light up. If you share my stuff on Facebook my phone doesn't light up. The only time if you send me an email my phone doesn't light up. The only time where my phone lights up is when a phone call is coming through. And everybody that knows me knows this and I've got I set clear boundaries of if it's an emergency or you need to get a hold of me just freaking call me don't text me but if it's something that's not important send me a text message I'll see it when I pick up my phone next so how can you get rid of all notifications? What about notifications on your computer? Oh my god I don't have any notifications literally zero notifications excuse me on my computer zero notifications how could you try to set up your life that way? Just have zero notifications imagine how much more focused you could be if you didn't have notifications ruining your life right so just remove all of them that you possibly can number six is to listen to binarial beats with headphones couple things that are really important here number one when a person's wearing headphones people are less likely to walk up to them and interrupt them so if you're trying to stay focused pretty good idea huh? why don't we just put on our headphones and make sure that people don't walk up to us so that's the first thing the second thing is when you have headphones on you usually don't overhear conversations you don't hear things in other places and so you can stay focused because there is nothing coming in auditorily into your head except for that and that actually goes to another point of it as well the reason why I listen to binarial beats is because it's usually just a sound you know or just like a humming drowning out like very calm cool noise all I do is I just go into youtube and I just put in focused binarial beats that's it and that's what I listen to and what happens is there's no words to it so therefore it doesn't if I'm in a train of thought and then somebody starts singing and I start singing with it it's getting me off my train of thought and so I'm trying to listen to music that is just going to turn off my ears to the outside world and keep people from the outside world from coming in and actually starting to talk to me so put in binarial beats whatever it is you can do or put in piano music whatever it is it makes you feel good whether it's chill music whether it's upbeat music whether it's EDM that has literally no singing in it no talking in it whatever it is completely up to you but just put your headphones on I prefer binarial beats just works better for me and drown out the world go directly into whatever it is that you're working on and get it done so that's another way to stay focused and then step number seven for staying focused this is a little bit counter-intuitive what most people might think is to work out for 15 minutes here's the reason why let's say that I'm sitting here I'm not very productive today's been a slow day I'm feeling you know kind of groggy I'm not 100% into it I'm not fired up today what they actually found researchers found that people who worked out for 15 minutes before completing a task actually completed the task significantly faster than those who didn't and the reason why is because their brain and body now have the chemicals of moving of getting stuff done right now after the workout it could be 15 minutes of yoga it could be you go for a run it could be jumping jacks it could be push-ups it's whatever gets that heart rate of yours up so that you're starting to if you heard me in another podcast episode starting to feel like you're moving forward like your body is more leaning forward versus leaning backwards leaning forwards getting stuff done and so if you feel God today's just a slow day I'm not into it my brain doesn't feel into it I'm just not fired up get your body moving 15 minutes and you will see that you will get things done significantly faster if you do that because it's really hard to go from not getting anything done to getting things done but if you're not getting anything done and you're like I'm gonna get my heart rate up I'm gonna push myself I'm gonna start going it's a lot easier start getting stuff done at that point so 15 minute workout get your blood pumping get the chemicals run through your body get that adrenaline going and then start completing some tasks start getting some things done