"There can be no change without action," is one of the truest statements ever said.

You must do something for your life to change. If you do not put action toward making a change, nothing happens. We could fast forward a year or two and your life would be the same.

Let's face it, we all only have 24 hours in a day. The only difference between some of us is our ability to focus in those 24 hours. For most modern humans, with more distractions than any other time in history, focusing can be the single hardest thing for us to do.

What is focus? It is the act of saying 'yes' to one thing while saying 'no' to everything else.

It is simply saying 'yes' to sitting down and working on your marketing (for example) for an allotted amount of time and saying 'no' (for now) to doing the laundry.

It's saying 'no' (for now) to mindlessly scrolling Instagram, Tik Tok, etc . . .  and saying 'yes' to building your business for the next hour and bringing as much of your brain power as possible to that one thing.

What you say "no" to may be more important than what you say "yes" to.

When you say 'yes' to something you are saying 'no' to something else. Have you ever waited until the last minute to do something ("it's unavoidable now") because you were distracted ("ran out of time"), then decided to sit down with extreme focus and do nothing else but work on that very thing with zero distractions? Well, what happened? You got it done! Quickly! And usually very well.

That focus is what I am talking about here (except for waiting to the last minute part). Use that experience as a lesson and just do small bites of 30 or 45 minutes to at a time. When your head tells you, "I wonder how many 'likes' my photo got on Instagram?," tell yourself NO. Put your phone away, on silent, so so notifications will not draw your focus away. Be diligent!

Most of us are bad at the saying "no" part. That is why a few people seem to have more time in the day, because most people (the vast majority) can't focus for small amounts of time. Set a timer and do one task until it's done (or until the timer goes off) with no interruptions.

You are not a "distracted" person. You can focus. If you have ADHD, guess what, you can be better at this than everyone. ADHD/ADD can be a superpower when it comes to focus. Everyone who has it has multiple stories like the previous "last minute" focus example. When I was in high school my "last minute" focused work was so good, many of my teachers thought someone else did it for me! They had just never seen anything but my "distracted" work until that point. Every time I turned in a "long-term" project, like a term paper, I did the entire thing in the last few days, and the quality of the work was outstanding. Because I was hyper-focused, I had no other choice but to burn the candle at both ends to get it done. (Now, I prefer to spread the work out and sleep well. LOL)

Multitasking is doing more than one thing less well than if you did them one at a time.

Let's talk about Multitasking. 
Very important things cannot be multitasked. Your brain can only move from one task to another. It is actually "single tasking" and switching rapidly from one task to another. And typcially, these tasks are repetitive and don't require focus.

Psychologists have found when you switch between two tasks you get something called a "cognitive penalty." There have been many studies on this. Here's an example of a "Cognitive Penalty":

If you stop an important task to check your email (on average people at work check their email every 5 minutes), it takes an average of 2 minutes to get your brain back to focus on the previous task. If you were writing a story, words are flowing and you are in the zone, but then a notification 'pings' on your laptop to tell you have a new email, it will typically take your brain 15 minutes to get back to your previous level of focus. This is a 15-minute "cognitive penalty" due to the notification, not even reading the email. They are not saying you can't get back to your task for 15 minutes, but they are saying you can't get back to doing quality, focused work for 15 minutes.
 
You must remove distractions. 
Have you heard of Victor Hugo? He's the author of Les Misérables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and he regularly suffered with writer's block. Eventually he figured out he was very easily distracted and what from: he fiddled with the buttons on his shirt constantly. So, Victor completed these two masterpieces, in the nude, alone in a room with only a pen and paper. No kidding! He had to force himself to focus to not only get it done and do his best work.

Don't think for a second that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the Great Gatsby sitting in his kitchen, with the TV on, kids screaming, chatting with his wife while she helped them with their homework? No way. Like these great authors, give yourself no other option other than to get that one thing done.
 
Here are 7 Pro Tips to build the "muscle" of Focusing below.
You can get better at it!

1 - Opposite of focus is being distracted. Clear an area, put your phone in another room, turn off your notifications on your tablet, laptop, and watch. Get away from people for 30 minutes. Get noise cancelling headphones if needed! A podcaster said he knows someone who works in a huge open office space of cubicles and when he needs to focus, he puts on headphones and literally tapes a note to the back of his shirt that says, "Do not distract me unless it's a real emergency."

2 - Make a to-do list and prioritize it. Highlight the most important and urgent things on the list. Take out trash? Important, but not a priority. Pick up son at soccer? Important, but not urgent because it is not 6:00 PM yet. Take the three most important and urgent things on the list, put those things in order by priority and put the rest of the list away. Start with no distraction time focused on #1. If nothing else gets done, you got #1 done.

3 - Small tasks. Take the large tasks and break them into small tasks. When tasks are large, we dread them because we focus on the whole thing at once. Break it up and go bit by bit. It's now smaller and more manageable, and will also give you the sense of accomplishment. Small tasks are not as daunting.

4 - Focus on progress. Don't focus on the size of the task. When you create small tasks, do not judge yourself on anything other than how many small tasks you've completed. "I made progress today," or "I did two steps of my…" That is all you need think about: the progress you made and feel accomplished!

5 - Prioritize your sleep! Your brain needs rest in order to focus. Attempting to multitask is more draining than focusing. Find how much sleep you really need and get it. If you must, do early morning tasks later so you can sleep more. Make lunches the night before. Plan better.

6 - Stay Hydrated! You are 70% water. Brain function is electrical currents moving going through the liquid in your brain. The brain is the first thing to dehydrate and the last thing to rehydrate. If you feel off, "I'm off today" or "I'm foggy," you are probably dehydrated. 80-85% of people are dehydrated every day. Science shows your brain needs about a gallon of water per day.

7 - Take breaks. But, do not do anything on your breaks! Try 25 minutes of no distraction focus, and 5 minutes for a break. Stare into space during those 5 minutes. Do nothing. Think of focus as a workout for your brain. You would never go to the gym and not take a break, or work out everyday with no rest day, would you?

The better you become at focusing, the better output you will get at whatever you're working on. You need the maximum amount of brain power put toward the task you need to get accomplished. Not only is focusing in small 30- or 45-minute increments OK, it is the best way!