You’re busy all day, and in the evening you still feel you finished very little. Or a hard task is waiting, such as an essay or a report. You wonder whether the effort of focusing is worth it.
You get four reasons why focus pays off, and why more focus is not always better. You also see what losing focus costs, as measured in studies, and one small way to start today.
Why is focus important?
Focus is important because it is how working time turns into finished results. A day full of switching can feel productive and still leave nothing finished, but focused work gets something done. Phases of hyperfocus show clearly how much you get done with focus, and what it costs.
So how can focus help you? Four things change at your desk.
- You finish things. With one clear goal, you work toward a result instead of doing a little of everything. The work ends with something done.
- Dreaded tasks shrink. Tasks you put off often get done faster once you give them a set time.
- You reach flow. Flow is the state where the work moves easily and you block out everything else. In flow, you’re most productive.
- You want to start again. When you’re rested and get something done, you look forward to the next round.
These four reasons describe what changes at your desk on a normal workday when you stay with one task. They don’t promise a measured gain in output. If you want the productivity question in detail, read more about how focus affects productivity.
Is more focus always better?
No, more focus is not always better, because days of nonstop focus cost you the days after. The hyperfocus phases above show that price. To see whether hyperfocus is a good kind of focus, read about how hyperfocus differs from deep work.
The first condition is a rested head, because when you’re tired, you can’t concentrate. Working tired can be worse than not working at all, because it leads to mistakes and results you must redo. On days when you can’t avoid it, read about how to focus when you’re tired.
Two things keep your focus repeatable: real breaks during the day and evenings without work. Without a real break, the quality of your work drops from one stretch of focus to the next. Recovery in the evening is just as much a part of your productivity as the work itself.
What does losing focus cost you?
Losing focus costs you time and calm, so a rested, repeatable focus is worth protecting. That’s why you need to stay focused once you’ve started. The table shows what researchers actually measured, at work and in the lab, when people switched tasks or got interrupted.
| Study | Setting | What it found |
|---|---|---|
| Gloria Mark, Gallup interview (2006) | 36 people watched at work for three days | Switched working spheres, like projects, every 10 minutes 29 seconds on average |
| Same field study | Same people | They interrupted themselves about 44% of the time |
| Mark, Gudith and Klocke (2008) | Lab, 48 people, interrupted by calls or messages | Work was faster and equally good, but more stressful and frustrating |
| Ward, Duke, Gneezy and Bos (2017) | Two experiments | Own phone nearby left less thinking capacity, even when not checked |
| Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans (2001) | Four lab experiments | Each switch cost time, and harder rules cost more |
In the lab, interrupted work was just as good, but people felt more stress and frustration. Each switch between lab tasks cost only tenths of a second, which is what task switching costs in pure time. So each switch costs you little time, but it costs you more in calm and effort.
In the 44% row, people interrupted themselves. So impulse control is part of focus. You can remove outside distractions in advance, but your own thoughts need a place to go.
Start with one focused block
You get the focus that pays off by starting small, with just one protected block. A block is a timed stretch of focused work toward one written goal. It lasts 45 minutes when you’re rested and focused, and you make it shorter when you’re not.
Five things cover the basics for your first block, in this order:
- Switch your phone off and put it out of sight, ideally in another room.
- Close every program and browser tab the task doesn’t need, and turn on Do Not Disturb.
- Set a timer for 45 minutes when you’re rested and focused, or 35, 25 or 15 minutes when you’re not.
- Write your goal for this block on a sheet of paper as a finished state. An example is “First draft of the outline is done.”
- Note any unrelated thought in a few keywords on a second sheet, called the thought sheet. Then look back at your goal.
If you want to go beyond phone, browser tabs, timer, goal and thought sheet, read about how to focus better. Judge each block by what it produced, because results count more than minutes or the number of blocks. If you’re in flow when the timer rings, keep going, because you can always work past the timer.
Your first block won’t be perfect. Each block after it gets better. Whether you work until the timer rings depends on what you do before you start and when you lose focus. See how it works →
FAQ
What are the benefits of practicing focused concentration for professionals?
The main benefit for professionals is that focused concentration takes less effort over time and becomes a habit. After about three days of working in timed blocks, it starts to feel automatic for me. Keep going, and it gets easier until you build a deep work habit.
Is your attention span getting shorter?
One measure says yes. Researcher Gloria Mark said people stayed on one screen two and a half minutes in 2004. Today they stay 47 seconds on average, she said in a podcast interview for Steelcase.
This number only measures time on one screen. You can still improve your attention span.
Why is focus important for success?
Focus is important for success because big goals are reached in small finished steps, and focus finishes each one. Write your end goal as a state already reached. Then write the next milestone, and focus on the step in front of you.
