Diversity in Focus

What might your income and life look like if you were able to get more done in a single day than you typically do all week? Today, we’re sharing a good insight into how to be more focused than you ever imagined was possible, and it’s backed by evidence.

Recently, a ten-year study from McKinsey—a company that works for the top Fortune 500 companies and makes distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in performance—came to our attention. What they found is that executives are 500% more effective when in a state of flow.

This principle is simple. At any given moment, our life experiences are the product of our senses. Vision, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Because we set up our productivity time haphazardly, for most of us, that usually looks like constant phone notifications, distracting music, and eating processed foods that crash our energy—all because of many small decisions that impact our performance. By setting aside time and preparing space that positively impacts those five senses, you can immediately and drastically improve your performance.

Steven Kotler, author of The Rise of Superman, examined how extreme athletes like surfers, snowboarders, skydivers, and others achieve higher rates of success. He said in a Harvard business review article, “Think about that 500% for a moment. This means if you can spend Monday in flow, you’ll get as much done as your steady-state peers do in a week.”

Being in a “flow state” is an incredible feeling, and it superpowers your productivity. Till your next post from us, do yourself a favor and at least try this every day. Tune up each of those senses as follows for the next 7 days:

1. Curate an Audio Oasis:
   Strategically curate your audio environment to direct your focus. Eliminate distracting pings and notifications, then immerse yourself in motivational playlists and loops designed to keep you in flow. Noise-cancelling headphones are like blinders for your ears, blocking out disruptions. Surround yourself with sound that keeps you tuned in!

2. Clear the Clutter, Expand Your Focus:
   Craft an external landscape that aligns with your internal focus. Temporary phone hiding combined with motivational artwork removes visual clutter and brings your vision into flow. Leverage smart lighting to energize your alertness when needed, then unwind your eyes before sleeping. Optimizing your visual environment clears the path for your eyes to focus.

3. Optimize Your Physical Canvas:
   Since we inhabit physical bodies, dialing in optimal external physical conditions helps achieve inner focus. Set a cool room temperature to invigorate mental acuity. Adopt high-quality tools like pens and standing desks that unlock comfort, flow, and presence. Introduce natural elements like houseplants that ground your physical environment in what your body already knows—the effortless focus innate to nature.

4. Use Aromas as Focus-Fuel:
   This last one is the one we most gawked at, but we tried it, and it simply made us feel great! It works because smell is powerfully tied to memory, emotion, and mental state. Diffuse focus-boosting essential oil aromas like peppermint and lemon in your workspace. Associate those scents with your peak productivity times and flow states to train your mind for instant focus activation through smell. Harness aromatherapy to infuse your environment with fragrances formulated to keep you alert and zeroed in.

In short, when you optimize your work area and set a sacred time and space for focus, you significantly improve your flow state and performance. For entrepreneurs in today’s hectic environments, nothing can be more important. Your greatest enemy is not your competition, but distractions!

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Thanks, 

Your hosts at theDiversityPost, Raffa, Alicia & Tomás.

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