There are a lot of things to help you with this from meditation, correct diet, plenty of sleep, even down to breaking work down into manageable chunks. Here's a few things I am mindful of on a daily basis.
- Drink plenty of water, your mind needs hydration to function. Personally I keep a litre bottle of water by my side all day and drink from that at work.
- Personally I avoid caffeine because it raises my blood pressure and i feel faint.
- Eat the right foods, don't eat stodgy foods that you know will make you feel meh. Long lasting protein like porridge in a morning is a good start to the day.
- Music to help you focus. I use Alpha Binaural* beats to give me the edge when I need it but in the main I avoid music with speech** in as that only distracts me or creates too many images and I end up distracted.
- Meditation, aye it's not everyone's cup of tea but I do find that a certain meditation technique does actually clear my mind a great deal and promotes some inner calm.
- Exercise... Yes I still get some exercise, I have two slightly insane springer spaniels which need walking and training every day so I do get out. Although if it's a really insane shift and they are being looked after then I do a half arsed attempt at the 7 min workout*** a few times during a session.
- Remove distractions, this isn't always easy. I work for myself and I have software that clients use to report issues to and post messages on which allows me to switch emails and phones off for long periods. There's nothing wrong sticking a note on your office door telling people you are busy creating some epic code.
- Sleep, we need it to operate effectively. Catching up on it isn't a bad thing either, sunny lunchtime breaks for me are a chance to get the beanbags out in the garden and snooze for a while after a big session.
- Smart pills.....
But what happens when you do all that but you still feel you need some real laser focus? I had a friend that asked me how I manage to work for 36 hours straight with the only breaks being to walk the dogs every 8 hours. They had to write a business plan on the weekend and a large one at that, with a big family weekend ahead all they had was the evenings, and after a day of playing with the kids, walking the dog and the pressure of the impending deadline they were reaching out for some pointers. So I went about explaining my epic find a few years ago.
To cut a long story short, they took my advice and at 3am in the morning I got a text telling me how focused they were. They had nearly written the entire business plan in one evening and was now wide awake. They carried on texting but fortunately I slept through the entire thing to wake up and find that they had finished everything that evening and felt fresh as a daisy the following day, happy in the knowledge that they had hit deadlines.
So what is it? .... Modafinil. It is used around the world in certain organisations such as the US military where they are used to keep troops alert and by-eck it works. It's not classed as a controlled substance here in the UK and therefore legal to use. It works by stimulating your central nervous system (brain and spine) to give you a wakeful alert state. You will have heard of other stimulants used in the 1940's called amphetamines which are now illegal and addictive. Modafinil works in a different way to these and has no addictive qualities. Personally and with the other three people that I know who have taken it there are no side effects as yet and I have taken it for a few years now when I need it, although interestingly enough there are reports that it stifles creativity, such as graphic designers would be adversely affected. Not something that ever affects me as I spend all my time with my head inside windows full of code and chatting on IRC, I haven't a graphically creative bone in my body, my previous attempts at anything graphical in the past remind me of what I think a dancing colourblind meerkat on a merry-go-round would paint.
My experience with it is that it provides me with a laser focus and vision into what I am doing that does not drop off. The feeling of needing to do something else for a break is gone and all that remains is clear thought and a wakeful state. It does allow you to work for longer periods of time than normal, but let's not forget that lack of sleep is cumulative and all those hours do add up. I tried 36 hours on, 8 hours sleep, 36 hours on, 8 hours sleep, 36 hours on and then slept for 12 hours. The following day (Saturday) I was a little hazy and pretty tired. The rest of the weekend was spent walking the dogs and vegging out on the sofa watching TV and cat napping, but... I had just worked over 100 hours in a week.
There's my thoughts on it all, you need to make sure you keep your engine fulled and in top condition before you start to build on that foundation.
Eat well, sleep well and be productive people.
Peace.
Here's some links to ponder over
*Binaural beats
What are they
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats
My Favourite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rm-lubtdhw&list=PLVEuMHxpbIAv64R7OYKKwS3LVeEzVj7dD
**Speechless Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16kRVoSyO_w&list=TLNul3eIarTFReVmjm4ibDEqy7_V99l908
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvXL-YLRq60
***7 min Scientific workout
With a good diet and only these to keep me company i've managed to loose 4 stone this year which is a whole other story.
http://journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2013/05000/HIGH_INTENSITY_CIRCUIT_TRAINING_USING_BODY_WEIGHT_.5.aspx
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