Focus Time is one of the 7 daily essential mental activities that we need to expose our mind to in order to optimise our brain and perform at our very best.
Focus time is the time that we generally devote to our job, occupation or main activity, when we closely focus on tasks in a goal-oriented way, and when we take on challenges that make deep connections in the brain.
In order to maximise our output during focus time, we need to ensure that we don’t overstimulate our minds since it will lead to impairment of the executive functions of our brain (memory, organisation, creation, structuring, planning, emotion regulation, etc), in addition to distraction and lack of focus.
Multitasking has been proven to affect the quality of our work, diminish performance and even negatively alter the structure of our brain responsible for cognition and emotional control. Our brain has limited working memory, so by continually switching the spotlight of attention back and forth, we allocate less time to the task at hand, giving us a sense of being overwhelmed and incomplete.
Our brain is designed to apply singular attentional focus on a task, which permits a sense of mastery and completion. Therefore, we need to keep down the “switching-time costs” of multitasking which diminishes cognitive performance.
For years, medical research has been supporting the practice of daily meditation as a tool to effectively strengthen the neural networks in our brain (pre-frontal cortex) responsible for sustained attention (cognitive control).
Meditation will also help us expand and develop our consciousness and allow us to be more mindful, in other words, we will develop the capacity to be open and acceptant to what arises in our field of attention without giving in to emotional reactivity.
By exposing your mind to the other 6 essential activities on a daily basis, you will optimise your focus time and exceed your levels of quality and performance in whatever you decide to do.