Working and studying at home will put your concentration to the test. Anyone can do a small task. But what becomes of a bulging to-do list combined with complex projects and demanding thought work? Now you have to stay focused in the home office for a longer period of time.
But this is not that easy. First, because you are on your own and there is no external control body. Second, because you constantly have to deal with distractions big and small. These framework conditions ensure that you have to continuously defend your focus.
Imagine your concentration on this as a delicate plant. If you don’t take care of and protect her regularly, she will die. And once it is gone, it can take hours before it can recover and support your productivity.
Fortunately, you can train your concentration – and that’s less strenuous than it sounds. Often a few small changes in your daily routine, garnished with a little planning and a pinch of motivation tricks, are enough to stay focused longer in the home office. In this article, I’ll show you what you can actually do.
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With these 15 strategies you can stay focused longer in the home office
Everyone works and learns according to an individual pattern. So there is no ONE way to stay focused all the time. The secret to strengthening your concentration and increasing your performance therefore lies in the combination of different strategies. I will introduce you to the most important of these productivity techniques below. Use them the way they work best for you:
1. Plan the day
Many students approach their work in the home office spontaneously. You will eventually get up, eventually sit down at your desk, and then eventually start studying. But this “sometime” is dangerous. Without a specific time plan, your projects are non-binding. And through this non-commitment, it will be very easy for you to postpone important tasks or to waste your time with small things. To prevent this from happening, you should plan your daily routine and set a rough timetable with the most important to-dos. It’s not about assigning an exact activity to every minute, but rather about orientation and prioritization of your attention.
2. Overturn the plan
Plans are important. Point. But if your plan turns out to be out of date or useless, it would be foolish to stick with that plan. I know a lot of people who meticulously plan their daily routine and precisely schedule every task. However, if something unexpected happens or the completion of a task is delayed, the whole planning construct collapses. So be flexible and reassess your daily schedule from time to time. Have tasks been added? Have your priorities changed? Has an appointment been canceled? If so: change your plan and adapt it to the new conditions! Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower summed it up perfectly: “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything. ”
3. Work in stages
Nobody can stay focused in the home office all day. At least not in one go. As soon as you start a task, your personal concentration (and with it your performance) decreases slightly from the beginning of the first minute. After about half an hour, the drop in concentration increases until there is no more of your mental energy. What many people do then: They carry on anyway. They work and work and work – but they stay stuck or make mistakes because they can no longer concentrate. A clever counter-model to this inefficient tactic is working in stages. Divide your tasks into time windows of around 30 minutes and plan a short break after each interval. Such a stage structure saves your strength and refreshes your concentration again and again.
4. Take active breaks
In case you haven’t read it from the previous section: Breaks are one of the most sensible strategic ways to stay focused longer in the home office. Why? Because breaks ensure that you can replenish your energy reserves and keep your performance at a high level. Working without breaks, on the other hand, is the most effective way to completely destroy your concentration. However, it is not only important that you take breaks, but also HOW you take these breaks. The basic rule is: the more active your break, the better its effect. Breaks in which you sit at your desk and play around with your smartphone bring you less relaxation and freshness than active breaks in which you do a little workout, meditate or take a power nap. So “active” doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to fidget or do creative things. It’s about using your break actively and using it to recover.
5. Eat and drink
In addition to regular breaks, you should make sure that your body is supplied with the energy and fluids it needs to remain functional for a long time. On the other hand, many people forget to eat and drink while they work. They have a single cup of coffee or tea in a whole morning and then wonder why they are hanging on the ropes after noon – even though they have NOT had breakfast. In order for your mind to stay focused, you need to provide it with the necessary resources. Specifically, this means: drink at least one large glass of water every hour, eat regularly and with plenty of variety, avoid sugary drinks and avoid fatty fast food. If you feed your engine with lots of good things, lots of good things come out too. However, if you do not provide him with anything or with inferior stuff.
6. Incorporate social elements
The social component is the area of life that is usually neglected in the home office. Colleagues, fellow students and friends often make our daily challenges bearable and create a pleasant atmosphere. If you work or study from home, these people are missing. But there is nothing wrong with incorporating social elements when working from home. For example, you can set up a telephone switch with your fellow students and go through a task with them, hold a video conference with a good friend to have a break with her or call your grandma. Thanks to the possibilities of digitization, you don’t have to do without social contacts in the home office either.
7. Listen to the internal clock
As mentioned at the beginning: Every person has an individual work rhythm in the home office. Some can easily start a demanding task at 7am; others need a few hours to get going. Some people do their best in the mornings; others outgrow themselves in the late afternoon. It does not matter when your most productive phases of the day are – it is only important that you know them and know at what times you can concentrate on learning and working. Divide up your tasks accordingly and deal with difficult to-dos when you are at your best. If you find yourself in a low performance, you can deal with routine tasks, the household or simple activities.
8. Provide comfort conditions
An often underestimated component related to working in the home office is the design of your workplace. Here are a few simple questions: Do you feel comfortable at work at home? Do you have all the tools you need for your work? Does something bother you Are you sitting comfortably How are the lighting conditions? Is your monitor set correctly? Do you have enough space? Can you do something better All of these details (and many more!) Ensure that you can stay focused longer in the home office – or not. Even small changes in your workplace can make you feel better, less distracted, and think more focused. Take a closer look at the following reading tip.
9. Change your working location
If your home allows it, it is a good idea to change jobs every now and then while working in the home office. I don’t mean that you should study in the bathtub or work in bed. The point is that by changing location you can maintain your concentration for longer and thus increase your productivity. Various studies have confirmed this effect. Accordingly, changing jobs can ensure that you are more focused on new tasks and can do them more consistently. So if you find yourself losing attention at your desk, move your work to the kitchen, balcony, or other location. After a few minutes you come back and continue working with concentration.
10. Do something stupid 🙂
When you study and work at home, your professional and private spheres coincide – at least partially. This inevitably leads to your ability to concentrate being distracted and disturbed by private matters. Because you can hardly prevent this mechanism, I recommend that you deal with it offensively. You can do this by giving in to various distractions, taking care of personal matters or simply doing something that has nothing to do with your work or your studies. This can also be something crazy or stupid. However, you should only allow this targeted distraction for a short time and then return to your daily schedule. You are sacrificing 15, 20 or 30 minutes of your time for your favorite series, the game console or a phone call with an old buddy, so that you can continue working on your goals with full energy. The bottom line is that this way you can stay focused longer at home.
11. Calling time wasters by name
To increase and defend your concentration, it is essential to know which influences pose a threat to them. Take a moment and recap your last working days in the home office: How did you lose a lot of time? What distractions kept bothering your concentration? How did you yourself contribute to weakening your concentration? What specific disturbances can you see in your home? The more precisely and carefully you answer these questions, the more precise the picture of your very personal time wasters will be. Write down the greatest threats to your productivity on a list and place them in a clearly visible place at your workplace. Once you know who and what is attacking your concentration, it is much easier to defend yourself against it.
12. Shield in phases
Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a quiet apartment. And even when you find yourself in a comfortable environment, this calm can be short-lived. Family, roommates or neighbors can destroy the most pleasant working atmosphere within seconds – and so do your concentration. Therefore, when working in the home office, it is occasionally necessary to shield yourself from your surroundings: Go to your room or a free room, close the door behind you and close the window. Nobody should disturb you, no outside influences are welcome. Put on headphones or use earplugs to protect yourself from acoustic distractions and do whatever it takes to be undisturbed.
13. Reflect regularly
In addition to external disturbances, the greatest risk factor for long-lasting concentration lies with yourself. I don’t mean that badly – it applies to every person. We ourselves disrupt our productivity by planning poorly, working imprecisely, acting too perfectionistly, brooding or being distracted by banalities. Unfortunately, we don’t see our own mistakes so clearly because we don’t see from the outside. An effective remedy for this “operational blindness” is regular self-reflection. Take an objective look at the way you work and ask yourself at regular intervals: What have I achieved in the last few minutes? Am i satisfied with myself What went well What can I do better? What should I pay attention to in the future? One minute of self-reflection can easily save you ten minutes each time and thus ensure that you can stay focused much longer.
14. Write down successes
Without motivation, it is difficult to stay focused for long periods of time. Particularly large and complex tasks pose a challenge to your concentration. The critical thing about this constellation is: You work continuously, but you hardly see any progress. You invest time and energy, but the results of your efforts will only become apparent much later. Of course you are aware of this, but this combination can be depressing at times. In fact, very depressing. For this reason, it is important that you regularly review what you have achieved so far. As soon as you visualize your progress, you will see how much you have already achieved. It will be much easier for you to continue, although the final result is just as far away as before. The method used in this form of visualization is called “Goal Tracking”. You divide a large, complex task into intermediate steps, assign each of these sub tasks a specific goal and put this structure on paper. Then you start editing and mark each sub-goal that you have achieved.
15. Use rituals
Over 95 percent of your success in college depends on the habits you develop. It doesn’t matter whether you are sitting in the lecture hall or studying in the home office. If you manage to regularly integrate different planning and productivity techniques into your everyday life, you will study more successfully and happily in the long term than you could ever imagine. Therefore, use targeted rituals and develop concentration-promoting habits. For example, you can plan the next day every evening – before going to bed. For example, you can start your most important task every day and also draw up a brief summary of your work so far at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. You can take a drink break every 30 minutes and change jobs twice a day. The possibilities are limitless. The only important thing is that you implement them. And regularly.
Conclusion
Everyone can learn and work in the home office. But staying permanently motivated and focused at home seems to only be granted to a select group of humanity. From today you are part of this exclusive club. Congratulations!
From now on you will be able to bundle your capabilities in the home office and master even the most difficult tasks with flying colors. Once again, here are the top strategies that will help you stay focused longer:
- Plan the day
- Throw the plan overboard
- Work in stages
- Take active breaks
- Eat and drink
- Incorporate social elements
- Listen to the internal clock
- Provide comfort conditions
- Change working location
- Do something stupid
- Calling time wasters by name
- Shield in phases
- Reflect regularly
- Write down successes
- Use rituals
Combine these approaches in such a way that your work in the home office is productive – but above all, it is fun. This last aspect is often forgotten, but the fun factor is essential for a sustainable and long-term increase in your success. Of course, this will not be feasible for every activity, but usually it is enough if you can look back satisfied and proud of yourself at the end of a long day.