What to do when one loses focus on the task at hand?

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KagamineLen
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10 Dec 2015, 1:41 pm

I am at the office now. I should be doing data entry instead of being here. But, for some reason, the motivation to be productive just is not there. A part of it may be entitlement - I worked my ass off the last few days and finished an important project, so I might be resting on my laurels when I should not be. Another part of it might be that I am distracted by looking at how nasty the weather is right outside my office window. Another part of it might be that I feel oddly detached from the world around me today.

In any case, my concentration is missing, my motivation is missing, and I need to find a way to restore it ASAP. So if any of you fine gentlemen and ladies have any brilliant ideas to rejuvenate my work ethic, feel free to let me know right here.



MDD123
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10 Dec 2015, 10:31 pm

Maybe its because your brain is so spent, you're on autopilot and this is something you do on autopilot. Last year I had so much happen at once that I ended up drained. I think the brain organ just had enough concentration/stress. I used my breaks as well as I could.

Outside of work, exercise and diet can work wonders, it sounds cliche' but I live by it and my body/mind would work against me a lot more if I didn't.

Inside and around work, maybe you could get a clipboard and try less draining work. I look for reference material ideas and try to compile what I think would be useful. For instance, I found a few pages of fluid-power formulas and posted them in the lab area. The job of putting stuff together isn't too challenging and at the very least helps you look productive.


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btbnnyr
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10 Dec 2015, 11:00 pm

When this happens to me, I usually consider two options:
1) I am really tired and shouldn't add more load to my brain to do X
2) I am not really tired and just don't have focus right now

To see which option fits better, I open the file that I should be working on, look at the thing I need to do, and try to start. I also open some website perhaps a forum to switch back and forth between the task and the website. This is for something to distract me from task each few minutes. If I find that I can't start task within ~10 minutes, I close the file and conclude that I am really tired and shouldn't do task now. In most cases like 8 or 9 out of 10, I find that I can start the task, do a little, check out some interesting things on the website, go back to the task, then after awhile of working on the task, I am no longer checking anything on the website, but focused on doing the task for what feels like a short time but is longer and getting a lot done. This is one way I found is good for finding focus and getting into flow when I don't feel focused and don't want to do a task.


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izzeme
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11 Dec 2015, 3:26 am

It's friday, it's crappy weather and you are spent from a project.

These days happen, and there is not a lot you can really do about it; sometimes you need to recharge.
You can pretend that this set of data is also a very important subject, but that will only get you so far.



Scorpius14
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11 Dec 2015, 6:16 am

I find a couple of cans of red bull or whatever caffeine drink you have available to get you through the day, I find it makes me more alert to my surroundings and super concentrated on the task at hand.