Focus phase

This part of your routine could benefit from being strengthened!

You scored in the lowest 42% of people.

Your responses suggest that you don’t often find time to ‘Focus’ and that this could be an area of your routine that would benefit from some marginal gains.

At the same time it is likely that you are extremely busy and finding this time is the biggest challenge.

Studies suggest the ability to focus is an important skill as well as being one that is difficult to cultivate in this age of distraction!

See if you can start small and think in terms of small tweaks. It might be that you would benefit from very small changes (‘marginal gains’) and that these could make a big difference to you.

The purpose of ‘Focus’ time is twofold:

to have some part of the day completely focused on your top priorities, not just reacting or task switching all day.
to have some part of your day where you can think differently (more deeply or strategically) about your work. Focus time is sometimes called ‘deep work’.

Focus time is the second part of the ‘up’ phase of our day, where we do the difficult or most important part of our to-do lists.

Fighting hard to protect at least some part of your routine free from interruptions or distractions - as you do - has been shown to predict higher quality outcomes, almost irrespective of the task.

Protecting focus time consistently will make it more likely that you make better decisions, create higher quality outcomes and have a greater impact in the work you do.

People who focus well are also more likely to attain a state called ‘flow’, where they feel utterly immersed in a task. Flow is one of life’s more enjoyable psychological states and is predictive of a greater sense of achievement, creativity and productivity.

Although you already protect Focus time, if you were to strengthen this part of your routine further, what would you alter?

Here are some ideas to get you started

Which aspect of a High Performance Routine do you need to improve?