Meetings. Ongoing training. Product development. Email. Text. Phone calls. You choose. Which one takes your team leadership focus off target the most?
Technology does facilitate many of these activities. This also means most people have more on their plates than attention and focus. With all of the responsibilities you have going on at once, it can be difficult to keep your team leadership focus on one task at a time. Is multitasking the solution? No. Here’s why.
Multitasking might seem like the only solution. But multitasking frequently provides a false sense of productivity. As a team leader, you’re better off to completely focus on just one task and see it to completion. You’ll get more done during the day, and the improved focus will allow you to provide quality work.
Strategies that improve your team leadership focus
Here are some ideas that will help you improve your team leadership focus and achieve success in the workplace.
Know your true team leadership focus.
As a leader, do you know what your true team leadership focus is or should be? Perhaps your answer is engaging employees. Maybe it is keeping tabs on performance metrics or putting out fires with customers and employees.
Unfortunately — and for many — how you spend most of your time probably doesn’t reflect your belief or practice. While you might describe yourself as busy, how are your days actually filled? How much time do you spend on social media? How long was your quick trip to the coffee shop? How many texts have you answered? This busyness you feel may actually be a sign of a lack of focus and poor time management.
To regain your team leadership focus and get more done in the day, start by tracking how much of your time is actually spent on personal tasks. Aslo track how much of your time is spent on tasks that could be delegated to other employees. Once you take inventory of your time, revamp your schedule and refocus your mind to the tasks that you should actually be working on.
Get enough sleep to boost your team leadership focus.
In order to maintain your team leadership focus throughout the day, you need to get enough sleep at night. French researchers are studying the effects of memory retention during the different phases of sleep. Findings show that deep non-REM sleep is important for allowing the brain to forget, and light non-REM and REM stages are both important for memory.
The connection between sleep and memory is still being researched. The researchers advise, however, to focus on achieving 8 hours of sleep per night.
Talk to yourself in the third person to enhance your team leadership focus.
Constantly referring to yourself in the third person can seem a little strange. However, doing so can actually reduce your stress and help regulate your emotions.
A study from Michigan State University and University of Michigan conducted two experiments and monitored respondents’ stress levels and negative emotions when referring to themselves in the first versus third person. When respondents referred to themselves in the third person, their stress levels and negative emotions were lower.
This is because talking to yourself in the third person allows you to view your situations from a different point of view and outside of yourself. It is how you would think of others. This has proved beneficial for handling stress and negative emotions. So to better focus on the task-at-hand while at work, especially during difficult situations, refer to yourself in the third person for better emotional regulation.
Keep a written journal to improve your team leadership focus.
With the onset of technology, the art of handwritten journaling has mostly been replaced with typing notes on a computer. If you want better focus, however, start manually writing again.
Journaling is a helpful strategy for many leaders because daily reflections help create a better sense of self-awareness. The act of writing the information by hand is important because it forces you to focus on only the important information.
To make journaling a daily habit, invest in a sturdy journal that you won’t be tempted to toss. Choose a pen that writes well and feels comfortable to you. Then ditch the perfectionism and just get your thoughts onto the paper to spark your creativity and revamp your focus.
With so much on your plate every day, life can feel overwhelming and overly busy. While multitasking might seem like a great solution, it can actually decrease your productivity and work quality.
Instead, regain your team leadership focus by completing just one task at a time. Then, consider the following:
- Know what your true focus is and make the conscious decision to focus on important tasks;
- Get enough sleep at night for memory retention;
- Talk to yourself in the third person to reduce stress and regulate your emotions; and,
- Keep a handwritten journal to improve self-awareness.
With these team leadership focus strategies, you can regain your focus and get more done during the day.
Care to dig deeper into this team leadership focus conversation?
The following resources will add to the conversation:
- What Are You Doing?
- Another Reason to Get a Good Night’s Rest — It Can Help You Focus and Your Brain Forget
- Need to Think Clearly? Try Talking to Yourself in the Third Person
- Doing This One Thing Could Help Your Intelligence, Focus and Creativity
- TIGERS 6 Principles leadership training
Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc. by Dianne Crampton
About TIGERS Success Series Group Norm Facilitator Training
TIGERS Success Series provides a Manager Facilitator training with a tool box that engages employees to identify the group norms that improve both department and company work culture. It helps organizations to re-engage employees, resolve conflict behavior and builds work relationships. These same resources and tool box can be used to onboard new employees and contractors onto existing teams so behavior is understood and normalized from the get-go. The training and tool box are brought to you when eight or more of your managers are enrolled.
