good morning believe nation it’s Evan my
one word is believe and I believe in you
and I believe in your potential and I
want to see that come out to help you go
off and find that amazing thing inside
you unleash it out into the world I
started to believe life series to try to
tackle some more personal issues
personal development topics that
hopefully if you can apply it to your
life you will be unstoppable
so today we’re gonna look at how to
develop laser sharp focus and as always
guys as you’re watching if you hear
something that really resonates with you
please leave it in comments below and
put quotes around it so other people can
be inspired and when you write it down
it’s much more likely to stick with
yourself as well enjoy
[Music]
be honest with me here when you study or
get work done how good are you at
focusing on that work and by that I mean
how susceptible are you to distractions
that pop up or the temptation to
multitask this is a really important
question to ask yourself because a lack
of focus a lack of the ability to
concentrate is one of the best ways to
waste a lot of the time you dedicate to
studying that’s because when you get
pulled away from your main task into a
distraction or some other task you’re
not just wasting the time that it takes
to get that distraction done with
there’s also something called a
cognitive switching penalty and as Josh
Kaufman points out in his book the
personal MBA which I highly recommend by
the way in order to take action your
brain has to load the context of what
you’re doing into working memory if you
constantly switch the focus of your
attention you’re forcing your brain to
spend time and effort thrashing loading
and reloading contexts over and over
again that’s why it’s possible to spend
an entire day multitasking getting
nothing done and feel exhausted at the
end you’ve burned all of your energy
context switching instead of making
progress this is why it’s so important
to build the ability to focus if you can
do that you’re going to eliminate a lot
of these potential cognitive switching
penalties you could have incurred from
your day and that means you’re gonna be
able to pack your work into a more
concentrated shorter amount of time and
get more done
here’s what I do specifically to help
myself
stay focused first things first when I
wake up in the morning I do not sleep
next to my phone the reason why I don’t
sleep next to my phone is because if you
sleep next to it or use it as your alarm
your tendency is to look at it while
you’re in bed that means that you’re
checking email before you’ve even
thought about what your priorities are
do not do that that’s tip number one tip
number two I have a pad of post-it notes
yes post-it notes next to my sink in my
bathroom why well because after I brush
my teeth haven’t looked at my phone yet
I take a post-it note out and I write
the three things I need to focus on
today and then you know what I do with
it
I stick it on the back of my phone
now why would I do that because I have
my phone with me all the time and so if
it’s on the back of my phone I’m going
to get a visual cue to remind me and
keep it top of mine so I stay focused on
it third thing that I do it’s a little
trick I call 30 before 7:30 what that
means I spend 30 minutes before 7:30
a.m. just focused on getting my day
organized and getting the few of the
things that are my top priorities either
finished or further down the field so
that’s 30 minutes before 7:30 a.m.
that’s time for me if you utilize those
three things don’t sleep with your phone
right after you brush your teeth right
out of your three priorities and stick
it on the back of your phone just like
this and spend 30 minutes before 7:30
for yourself I promise you you’ll be
shocked and how much more focused you
are and you feel your environment is so
important and if you look at be
performers or see producers they really
don’t pay a lot attention to their
environment and so they get very
distracted there’s lots of noises their
phones are going off maybe there’s news
in the background maybe there’s messy
environments all around them
maybe there’s toxic people what I’m
suggesting to you is the second piece of
technology to really 100 times your
productivity is this install
environments of tight bubbles of total
focus the way I run my work life on
certain days
I am very hard to reach and I challenge
you with great love and respect be very
hard to reach during key times of your
week I mean I see a lot of people and
it’s not judging them it’s just
observing them every time their phone
rings they check it or they have you
know these loud notifications so they’re
constantly being distracted and we know
what the research says the research says
we spend 2.1 hours a day in distraction
we spent and it takes 21 minutes to
refocus your focus after
you’ve been distracted so if you are
being distracted by notifications
checking your phone checking your
Twitter feed checking your Facebook feed
looking on Instagram checking all the
different platforms that is going to
destroy your focus so the second piece
of Technology’s create these tight
bubbles of total focus and the way I do
it is I have certain days that I label
as creative days and on those creative
days I actually go device free and on
those days I’m very hard to find and on
those days I’m in total solitude and on
those days I go to certain places I
called them my Menlo labs just like
Edison had his Menlo lab and these
places are very minimalist and there’s
no one there and that’s where I do my
best work so install these tight bubbles
of total focus and create these Menlo
labs where you’re sorry you’re
completely distraction free and then you
will find your brain will drop from the
beta state into the alpha state where
you will do your best work and get your
best ideas realize that you need to make
fewer decisions fewer decisions why well
as we know and from neuroscience and we
know from productivity studies that the
more decisions that we actually make the
more our brain becomes fatigued right
the more decisions that we make the more
we utilize the glucose that’s really
fueling our willpower that’s fueling our
frankly our our ability to make more
decisions and higher quality decisions
matter of fact the more decisions that
you tend to make the less effective
you’re going to be over the long term
because you’re gonna utilize your
ability and your resources and your
brains power literally your willpower
will go out the window so you want to
minimize the number of decisions you are
making how do you do that
well here’s some simple things one stop
browsing you know I know maybe you found
me because you were browsing somewhere
and I hope you make me part of your
focus on your personal development then
I’m a purpose so part of your life but I
can tell you overall browsing completely
wipes out your focus and your willpower
even all these little things you’re
focusing on are utilizing all your
brain’s resources and over time when you
stop browsing and you go back to
focusing on something guess what you
tend not to be able to focus on one
thing and get things done you start
multitasking and doing lots of things
but where your work isn’t really focused
nothing gets accomplished so what
happens is your brain is fatigued guess
what happens your brain fatigue you find
yourself sitting with a bag of potato
chips and what do you do when you have
the real control you’re just flipping
randomly through things do you ever
notice that meaning it’s easier to
become distracted the more distracted
you are meaning the more that you aren’t
focusing on one thing at a time
the more problem you’re going to have
later on to complete one thing at a time
and I know that makes sense but here’s
this simple solution if you missed it
stop browsing so much all those browsing
all those tweets that you’re reading all
those news feeds that you’re reading
guess what every time you look at them
that’s what your mind has to do it has
to make a decision pay attention or not
pay attention and that decision is
costing you focal power and resources
later on even if you don’t know it pre
committing to a task is simply building
some sort of device that binds you to
finishing it before you actually get
started and to do this you can use what
are called commitment devices it’s why I
use beeminder to ensure that I create
two things every week on my website if
you have some way of making sure there’s
a consequence for not getting your work
done you’re gonna be more motivated to
stay focused on that work this can be as
simple as writing down that you’re going
to get X done in 30 minutes and if you
don’t finish within 30 minutes you know
that you’ve failed
you’ve externalized that goal by writing
it down and now that you failed it
you’re gonna feel bad you could even do
something crazy like hiring a lady off
Craigslist to slap you in the face like
many safety did or you could stay within
the realm of sanity that’s cool too you
can also pre commit to one task by
eliminating your ability to do anything
else during that time this is often
called the burnt ships technique and
it’s in reference to an inaccurate but
still compelling story about Hernan
Cortes telling his men to burn their
ships before they attack
the Aztecs the motivation for doing this
would have been to keep his men focused
on the task because they had no other
option they couldn’t go back your goal
is to find the top one or two or three
activities that best use your core
genius bring you the most money and
produce the greatest level of enjoyment
the first step is to start by listing
all those activities that occupy your
time whether they’re business-related
personal or related to your civic
organizations or volunteer work list
even small tasks such as replying the
emails or returning phone calls or
washing dishes next choose from this
list those one two or three things you
are particularly brilliant at your
special and unique talents those things
very few other people can do as well as
you and also choose from this list the
three activities that generate the most
income for you or your company any
activities that you’re brilliant at and
generate the most income for your
company are the activities where you
want to focus the most time and energy
and then finally create a plan for
delegating everything else to other
people now delegating takes time
training and patience but over time you
can keep chipping away at the low pay
off non-essential tasks on your list
until you’re doing less and less of
those and more and more of what you’re
really good at that is how you create a
brilliant career now here’s your
homework to complete after watching this
video create a list of all the
activities that occupy your time then
choose three things from that list that
you’re brilliant at then delegate at
least one thing from the remaining list
to someone else today and then tomorrow
delegate one more thing to someone else
and do this every day until you’re only
working on the task that you do best and
it produced the most results
so thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed I’d love to know what
did you think of this video what are you
going to take from this and immediately
apply it somehow into your life or your
business I would love to hear your
thoughts please leave it down in the
comments below I also want to give a
quick shout out to Jane Casal Jane thank
you so much for picking up a copy of my
book your one word and posting that
picture on LinkedIn I really appreciate
your support and I hope you enjoyed the
read so thank you guys again for
watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love guys
I’ll see you soon
i watch your videos as i hope to start a
business with the algorithms i will
develop can you give me some tips for
staying focused one of the best ways
that i know how to stay focused on my
tasks on my goal is to create a schedule
so this isn’t your full-time thing yet
you have a certain number of hours that
you dedicate them to this every week I
would schedule that time in that has to
be really important time right and this
is for anybody who’s running the
business or is doing it part-time you
schedule in your CEO time or you
schedule in your task management time
and you don’t allow interruptions right
you turn off your phone
you know you lock the door you don’t
check Facebook you know you don’t watch
YouTube videos even mine you’re not
watching my youtube videos on these
times and you sit down in your work and
you know you have this amount of time
every week or every day to spend on your
projects and you get to work so folks
vote forces you it forces you to stay
focused on the time so look at your
schedule see how much time you have and
plot it out every week every day however
much time you have and don’t allow for
any interruptions during that time
create a schedule the most important
word ever if you had to think of one
word that’s most important to you or
that sums you up or that would be like a
little beacon table ignition if you want
to know what the most important one word
is for Tony Robbins Gary Vaynerchuk
Oprah Winfrey will.i.am and Howard
Schultz I have a very special secret
video for you check the description for
details
[Music]
one word is believe and I believe in you
and I believe in your potential and I
want to see that come out to help you go
off and find that amazing thing inside
you unleash it out into the world I
started to believe life series to try to
tackle some more personal issues
personal development topics that
hopefully if you can apply it to your
life you will be unstoppable
so today we’re gonna look at how to
develop laser sharp focus and as always
guys as you’re watching if you hear
something that really resonates with you
please leave it in comments below and
put quotes around it so other people can
be inspired and when you write it down
it’s much more likely to stick with
yourself as well enjoy
[Music]
be honest with me here when you study or
get work done how good are you at
focusing on that work and by that I mean
how susceptible are you to distractions
that pop up or the temptation to
multitask this is a really important
question to ask yourself because a lack
of focus a lack of the ability to
concentrate is one of the best ways to
waste a lot of the time you dedicate to
studying that’s because when you get
pulled away from your main task into a
distraction or some other task you’re
not just wasting the time that it takes
to get that distraction done with
there’s also something called a
cognitive switching penalty and as Josh
Kaufman points out in his book the
personal MBA which I highly recommend by
the way in order to take action your
brain has to load the context of what
you’re doing into working memory if you
constantly switch the focus of your
attention you’re forcing your brain to
spend time and effort thrashing loading
and reloading contexts over and over
again that’s why it’s possible to spend
an entire day multitasking getting
nothing done and feel exhausted at the
end you’ve burned all of your energy
context switching instead of making
progress this is why it’s so important
to build the ability to focus if you can
do that you’re going to eliminate a lot
of these potential cognitive switching
penalties you could have incurred from
your day and that means you’re gonna be
able to pack your work into a more
concentrated shorter amount of time and
get more done
here’s what I do specifically to help
myself
stay focused first things first when I
wake up in the morning I do not sleep
next to my phone the reason why I don’t
sleep next to my phone is because if you
sleep next to it or use it as your alarm
your tendency is to look at it while
you’re in bed that means that you’re
checking email before you’ve even
thought about what your priorities are
do not do that that’s tip number one tip
number two I have a pad of post-it notes
yes post-it notes next to my sink in my
bathroom why well because after I brush
my teeth haven’t looked at my phone yet
I take a post-it note out and I write
the three things I need to focus on
today and then you know what I do with
it
I stick it on the back of my phone
now why would I do that because I have
my phone with me all the time and so if
it’s on the back of my phone I’m going
to get a visual cue to remind me and
keep it top of mine so I stay focused on
it third thing that I do it’s a little
trick I call 30 before 7:30 what that
means I spend 30 minutes before 7:30
a.m. just focused on getting my day
organized and getting the few of the
things that are my top priorities either
finished or further down the field so
that’s 30 minutes before 7:30 a.m.
that’s time for me if you utilize those
three things don’t sleep with your phone
right after you brush your teeth right
out of your three priorities and stick
it on the back of your phone just like
this and spend 30 minutes before 7:30
for yourself I promise you you’ll be
shocked and how much more focused you
are and you feel your environment is so
important and if you look at be
performers or see producers they really
don’t pay a lot attention to their
environment and so they get very
distracted there’s lots of noises their
phones are going off maybe there’s news
in the background maybe there’s messy
environments all around them
maybe there’s toxic people what I’m
suggesting to you is the second piece of
technology to really 100 times your
productivity is this install
environments of tight bubbles of total
focus the way I run my work life on
certain days
I am very hard to reach and I challenge
you with great love and respect be very
hard to reach during key times of your
week I mean I see a lot of people and
it’s not judging them it’s just
observing them every time their phone
rings they check it or they have you
know these loud notifications so they’re
constantly being distracted and we know
what the research says the research says
we spend 2.1 hours a day in distraction
we spent and it takes 21 minutes to
refocus your focus after
you’ve been distracted so if you are
being distracted by notifications
checking your phone checking your
Twitter feed checking your Facebook feed
looking on Instagram checking all the
different platforms that is going to
destroy your focus so the second piece
of Technology’s create these tight
bubbles of total focus and the way I do
it is I have certain days that I label
as creative days and on those creative
days I actually go device free and on
those days I’m very hard to find and on
those days I’m in total solitude and on
those days I go to certain places I
called them my Menlo labs just like
Edison had his Menlo lab and these
places are very minimalist and there’s
no one there and that’s where I do my
best work so install these tight bubbles
of total focus and create these Menlo
labs where you’re sorry you’re
completely distraction free and then you
will find your brain will drop from the
beta state into the alpha state where
you will do your best work and get your
best ideas realize that you need to make
fewer decisions fewer decisions why well
as we know and from neuroscience and we
know from productivity studies that the
more decisions that we actually make the
more our brain becomes fatigued right
the more decisions that we make the more
we utilize the glucose that’s really
fueling our willpower that’s fueling our
frankly our our ability to make more
decisions and higher quality decisions
matter of fact the more decisions that
you tend to make the less effective
you’re going to be over the long term
because you’re gonna utilize your
ability and your resources and your
brains power literally your willpower
will go out the window so you want to
minimize the number of decisions you are
making how do you do that
well here’s some simple things one stop
browsing you know I know maybe you found
me because you were browsing somewhere
and I hope you make me part of your
focus on your personal development then
I’m a purpose so part of your life but I
can tell you overall browsing completely
wipes out your focus and your willpower
even all these little things you’re
focusing on are utilizing all your
brain’s resources and over time when you
stop browsing and you go back to
focusing on something guess what you
tend not to be able to focus on one
thing and get things done you start
multitasking and doing lots of things
but where your work isn’t really focused
nothing gets accomplished so what
happens is your brain is fatigued guess
what happens your brain fatigue you find
yourself sitting with a bag of potato
chips and what do you do when you have
the real control you’re just flipping
randomly through things do you ever
notice that meaning it’s easier to
become distracted the more distracted
you are meaning the more that you aren’t
focusing on one thing at a time
the more problem you’re going to have
later on to complete one thing at a time
and I know that makes sense but here’s
this simple solution if you missed it
stop browsing so much all those browsing
all those tweets that you’re reading all
those news feeds that you’re reading
guess what every time you look at them
that’s what your mind has to do it has
to make a decision pay attention or not
pay attention and that decision is
costing you focal power and resources
later on even if you don’t know it pre
committing to a task is simply building
some sort of device that binds you to
finishing it before you actually get
started and to do this you can use what
are called commitment devices it’s why I
use beeminder to ensure that I create
two things every week on my website if
you have some way of making sure there’s
a consequence for not getting your work
done you’re gonna be more motivated to
stay focused on that work this can be as
simple as writing down that you’re going
to get X done in 30 minutes and if you
don’t finish within 30 minutes you know
that you’ve failed
you’ve externalized that goal by writing
it down and now that you failed it
you’re gonna feel bad you could even do
something crazy like hiring a lady off
Craigslist to slap you in the face like
many safety did or you could stay within
the realm of sanity that’s cool too you
can also pre commit to one task by
eliminating your ability to do anything
else during that time this is often
called the burnt ships technique and
it’s in reference to an inaccurate but
still compelling story about Hernan
Cortes telling his men to burn their
ships before they attack
the Aztecs the motivation for doing this
would have been to keep his men focused
on the task because they had no other
option they couldn’t go back your goal
is to find the top one or two or three
activities that best use your core
genius bring you the most money and
produce the greatest level of enjoyment
the first step is to start by listing
all those activities that occupy your
time whether they’re business-related
personal or related to your civic
organizations or volunteer work list
even small tasks such as replying the
emails or returning phone calls or
washing dishes next choose from this
list those one two or three things you
are particularly brilliant at your
special and unique talents those things
very few other people can do as well as
you and also choose from this list the
three activities that generate the most
income for you or your company any
activities that you’re brilliant at and
generate the most income for your
company are the activities where you
want to focus the most time and energy
and then finally create a plan for
delegating everything else to other
people now delegating takes time
training and patience but over time you
can keep chipping away at the low pay
off non-essential tasks on your list
until you’re doing less and less of
those and more and more of what you’re
really good at that is how you create a
brilliant career now here’s your
homework to complete after watching this
video create a list of all the
activities that occupy your time then
choose three things from that list that
you’re brilliant at then delegate at
least one thing from the remaining list
to someone else today and then tomorrow
delegate one more thing to someone else
and do this every day until you’re only
working on the task that you do best and
it produced the most results
so thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed I’d love to know what
did you think of this video what are you
going to take from this and immediately
apply it somehow into your life or your
business I would love to hear your
thoughts please leave it down in the
comments below I also want to give a
quick shout out to Jane Casal Jane thank
you so much for picking up a copy of my
book your one word and posting that
picture on LinkedIn I really appreciate
your support and I hope you enjoyed the
read so thank you guys again for
watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love guys
I’ll see you soon
i watch your videos as i hope to start a
business with the algorithms i will
develop can you give me some tips for
staying focused one of the best ways
that i know how to stay focused on my
tasks on my goal is to create a schedule
so this isn’t your full-time thing yet
you have a certain number of hours that
you dedicate them to this every week I
would schedule that time in that has to
be really important time right and this
is for anybody who’s running the
business or is doing it part-time you
schedule in your CEO time or you
schedule in your task management time
and you don’t allow interruptions right
you turn off your phone
you know you lock the door you don’t
check Facebook you know you don’t watch
YouTube videos even mine you’re not
watching my youtube videos on these
times and you sit down in your work and
you know you have this amount of time
every week or every day to spend on your
projects and you get to work so folks
vote forces you it forces you to stay
focused on the time so look at your
schedule see how much time you have and
plot it out every week every day however
much time you have and don’t allow for
any interruptions during that time
create a schedule the most important
word ever if you had to think of one
word that’s most important to you or
that sums you up or that would be like a
little beacon table ignition if you want
to know what the most important one word
is for Tony Robbins Gary Vaynerchuk
Oprah Winfrey will.i.am and Howard
Schultz I have a very special secret
video for you check the description for
details
[Music]
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