How to Get Back Your Focus in the Workplace

Is your focus in the workplace gone? Do you feel like you are simply wasting your time jumping from one email to another ping on Teams without accomplishing any real creative work?

I hear you. Especially as creative workers, we need our focus. Deep focus creates deep work and flow. Flow brings creativity.

But how can we get back our focus in the workplace if the world around us seems to demand our attention all the time?

1. Identify why your current situation is not working for you.

You have already done the first step. You are reading this article because you have looked for something online to help you get your focus at work back. This means you already know that your current situation is not working for you and you need a solution.

Whether you are working from home or from the office, or both, identifying that something needs to change in your work situation for you to get your focus back, so you can do the creative deep work you were hired to do is the first step.

A few reflection questions

Think about a few deeper questions to get to the root of what is keeping you from focusing.

• Are you often interrupted?
• What are the expectations around availability at work?
• Do you get cold-called?
• When do you check your emails every day?
• When do you plan your day?
• When do you attend meetings during your workday?
• Do you take care of personal stuff during your work hours?

Add a comment at the end of this blog and let me know.

It’s important that you know what exactly is causing you to not be able to focus in order to communicate it.

For example: 

For myself, back when I was an Instructional Designer in 2021 and started working from home, having to do very creative, deep work, I realized that what was killing my focus was the expectation to be available via group chat relatively often.

Also, I had meetings scattered throughout my week, sometimes in the mornings, sometimes in the afternoon. If I had a meeting at 11 am and I started to work at 8 am, I would not be able to get into a full focus mode, because I knew that around 10:30, I had to start preparing for my meeting.

I am also someone who works best early in the morning, so having meetings in the morning and trying to focus in the afternoon did not work for me.

2. Define your needs for more focus in the workplace.

After you have defined what is currently not working for you in your work situation with regard to your focus and creativity, sit down and make a list of what you need to do your best work.

Here are a few reflection questions:

• What time of day do you do your best work?
• How much uninterrupted time would you like daily?
• How many breaks do you need?
• When is the best time for you to have meetings?
• How available would you like to be?
• What is the best time for you to check emails?

Generally, what motivates me to do a great job at work is when those needs are met,

which are.

• Doing uninterrupted focus time in the morning for 2-hour stretches with quick check-ins in between.
• Taking a 60-90-minute lunch break during which I can go running and completely disengage with work.
• Meeting only after 1 pm, when my best brain is already used up.
• Checking email once after 1 pm.

When you look at your list, you may think that your wishes do not aline with reality. 

However, you will only know if you ask. Workplace culture is fostered by everyone on the team. You could be the one to change workplace culture and bring back focus by defining your needs and communicating them (see the next step). Who knows? Maybe you will be amazed at what can happen…

3. Communicate your needs with your team.

As mentioned in step 2, once you have defined what you need to focus on in the workplace, you need to communicate those needs to others.

Some of these changes you may be able to influence without the help of others. For example, you may have control over when you schedule a meeting. However, other things, like team-wide expectation on how available you have to be, can’t be changed until you bring them up.

Either way, communicate to your team that you are trying out new strategies to increase your focus in the workplace, enhance your creativity and consequently your motivation and productivity at work.

3.1 Change your behavior

Now that you know what your ideal work situation would be like, assess how much control you have over the design of your workday.

Then, and this is the hard part, change things around to better meet your needs.

For example, for me, to have fully uninterrupted time in the morning, I started work at 7, because between 7-9 it was acceptable to not be vocal in the group chat. So, I got a lot of work done during that time.

I also started scheduling as many meetings as I influenced over after 1 pm.

Think about what you can change about yourself. 

Maybe you need to:

• Prioritize your work differently, 
• change when you look at emails, or
• how long you take to answer a teams message. 

About that – know that you educate the expectations of the people around you on how fast they can expect an answer from you – by how fast you answer 😉

3.2 List the needs you need your team’s support on

Depending on your work situation, you may want to address the needs you need support from your team with your manager first or with the whole team.

Whatever you choose, the only thing that is important is that you communicate clearly what your intent is. You want to do your best work, you want to focus and be creative, so you can get the job done. Tell your manager that in order to do so, this is what you need.

Corporate culture can be a scary place, especially when the “culture” seems to be so widely accepted. However, no change is going to happen if no one ever speaks up. If you feel like you can’t focus in the workplace, I bet many others can’t either. So speak up for yourself (and in that for others) and you might be surprised what you can achieve.

4. Redefine your work schedule.

At this point, you have identified why your work situation is not working for you, what your needs are, and you have communicated them.

So, what did you hear back? Let me know in the comments below. I am so excited to hear it.

For example, I brought up to my team that I need more uninterrupted work time. The team came to the conclusion that to maintain balance between focused work and ongoing communication, we would all check in to the team’s chat once an hour. This wasn’t what I had hoped for, but I understand the rationale.

Also, I asked my supervisor if I could flex my work time and they said yes. Additionally, they said that I never have to ask permission to do so, which is the best you can hear – when your supervisor trusts you.

So, with the results from your conversations with your boss and the team, plus the changes that you identified you can do on your own, how are you going to change your workday?

Let me know in the comments below what your workday looks like now.

For example, my work week looked something like this:

Weekday	am	pm
Monday	Focus Time	Email/Meetings/Organizing
Tuesday	Meetings	Meetings
Wednesday	Focus Time	Focus Time
Thursday	Focus Time	Email/Meetings
Friday	Focus Time	Organizing

5. Check in with yourself regularly.

Things change, work changes, you change. Maybe your work schedule that you defined in 4. worked great for you for a while. As a result, you really did increase your focus in the workplace. However, make sure to maintain a little bit of flexibility and regularly check in with yourself on whether your work schedule needs adjusting. 

Want More Tips For An Easier Office Life? Consider these Articles:

How to Set up Rules for Outlook for Guaranteed Inbox Clarity 

How to be Less Stressed at the Office with This Easy Email Habit 

Email Back and Forth: The Best Way to End It For Good 

Just Another Day at the Office – A Simple Daily Structure 

How to Write a Professional Email Out of Office Notice

3 Proven Tips for Email Management Best Practices Outlook

How to Save an Email as a Template in Outlook

Rule for Gmail Inbox? 7 Easy Clicks to Set Them Up

How to Get Back Your Focus in the Workplace

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How to Share and Email Template in Outlook and Why You Should Do It

How to Set Up a Mail Merge on Word

The Ultimate Guide to Email Subject Line Examples for Meeting Request

How to Organize Files Mac Step by Step Guide

How to Organize Files on Mac Computers

3 Easy Steps to Saving Templates in Outlook Desktop Mac

p.s.

One More Thing:

I am sure you would not say “no” to receiving fewer emails altogether. What if I told you there is a way you might not have thought of? A method that will reduce the number of emails you receive… I personally guarantee it!

Curious and willing to learn? Click below to receive your free email template for every future email you’ll write.

Write? Yes. You’ll see.