Focus and Concentration cont.

A topic that has been a common theme throughout the blog posts our class has been doing is focus, concentration and maintaining it. We've discovered that there's a strong force pulling us away from our concentration. So in light of that, we must find a way to combat it. There are several ways we can get past this, one way I really began to try helping me maintain my focus is by putting little reminders up everywhere.
On the top right of my computer screen I have a sticky note that poses three simple questions. The first question it asks is "Are you spending your time wisely?" This is the first question for a very specific reason, I feel as though it is the most important. In this question it basically sums up every issue into one. I need to be consciously thinking about how I'm spending my time and whether or not it is going to make a difference in my end product. The quality of my time is crucial.
The second question posed is, "Do you have any apps running or tabs open other than those necessary to accomplishing your task?" It's an honest question, but it's a difficult one. How many times do we want to have our Facebooks open? How often are we streaming through our pandora, or editing playlists on spotify? These seemingly unimportant things often take more of our attention than we are aware of. When we multi-task we are dividing our brain and we are less adept to handle one task to the best of the ability when we are not able to give all of our ability to it.
The third and final question is, "Would the fifth grade you be proud of the grade that this work is going to get the current you?" This sad answer to this question is often no. But that's just even more of an eye-opener. When we were younger we often held ourselves to higher standards declaring we would never become a slacker or lackadaisical in our school, but we still do anyway. I just really like this question because it's a true gut check.