It happens to all of us. Normally we’re a machine at work – we know what needs to be done, we come to work prepared and we tackle another day head on. While we certainly face challenges, we know we can handle them and plow right through them. We raise our hands victoriously at the end of the day and are satisfied by another job well done. Then it strikes. Whether it be sickness, personal stuff, burnout or something else – we lose our focus at work! The things we normally breeze through take longer than usual. Deadlines and assignments pile up. Where a neat to-do list once sat is now a scribbled pile of scrap paper and a bunch of tasks “we’ll remember to do” swirling in our minds. Maybe bosses or coworkers are noticing that we’re not the same. “Are you OK?” they ask. This is a place no one likes to be, and only one question remains: how can I get back my focus at work? Luckily, there are many things we can do. Let’s dive in.
What Makes Us Lose Focus At Work?
People lose focus at work for a number of reasons. I truly believe we all have our own reasons, and it can often be a combination of causes. Here are some common ways we lose focus at our jobs, in case you’re finding it hard to pin down exactly what’s happened:
- You’re suffering from burnout – you’ve been overworked and are feeling the long term affects of stress, imbalance between work/home and want to do anything but your job.
- You’re dealing with a mental heath issue – anxiety and depression are common but not the only ones.
- New priorities – a new partner, hobby or lifestyle arrangement is interfering with the job.
- Personal issues – family, health, financial, etc.
- Your work environment is toxic or specific coworkers are.
- You don’t have any upward mobility in your current position. The proverbial “dead end”.
With each one of these causes, there are a number of solutions to pursue. Let’s get into each one and discuss some ways to get back on track.
Mandatory Disclaimer: I Am Not A Psychologist Or Mental Health Professional. These Suggestions Are My Opinion Only, Based On Experience And Research. Make Sure To Consult A Professional For Any Urgent Issues.
1. Get Past Burnout At Work By Auditing Your Job
Burnout often occurs as a result of being overworked, but can also happen when a process or project that you’re working on is fundamentally flawed. Either way, it’s time to take stock of what your job entails, what you should be doing and where energy is spent.
First off – make sure you take care of yourself and relax outside of work. A healthy mind and body go a long way towards avoiding burnout.
- For one week, make note of every task you do and how much time you spend on it.
- Review this list and note items you feel are time-wasters or not part of your job.
- Think of any solutions you may have, too! A boss will want to hear them.
- Schedule time to meet with your manager and discuss the list you made with them. Propose your solutions, too.
- Based on your meeting, it may be time to delegate tasks, rework how certain tasks are being done and change your schedule around.
A few bonus tips:
- Take a mental health day to clear your mind and reset.
- On weekends, as tempting as it may be to ‘catch up’, DON’T. Try not to even think about work, and focus your attention on recovery instead.
2. If It’s A Mental Health Matter, Address It Immediately
According to ADAA.org, 40 million adults in the US suffer from an anxiety disorder. That’s almost 1 in 5 people. Yet, only about a third of them get treatment! For the math geeks, out of a sample of 20 people, about four will have an anxiety disorder and at least two of them won’t ever get actual treatment.
As you can imagine, neglecting treatment for these issues never helps. In today’s day and age, mental heath issues are easier to get treated for than ever. While prescriptions surely help some in cases, they might not be required. Not all treatment is professional, either. We can do many things to help ourselves.
Here are some ways we can manage our mental health:
- Make sure you’re taking care of your own basic needs outside of work.
- Drink plenty of water and move away from processed foods, excess salt and sugar, unhealthy fats, etc.
- Try making time for yourself each day to do something you enjoy.
- Exercising for even a few minutes a day can leave us feeling refreshed and balance out our internal chemicals via endorphins and serotonin.
- Consider getting bloodwork done to check for vitamin deficiencies or something else that causes focus issues.
- Give meditation a try.
- Get adequate sleep.
- Medical professionals can lend an ear to your problems, teach you how to cope with stress/anxiety and help in many other ways, too.
3. Eliminate Distractions At Work To Focus More
I forget the exact statistic, but about 1 in 10 minutes is spent on Facebook ALONE by the average American worker (while at work)! Add to that a chirping smartphone, continuous text threads, several browser tabs open and the usual office gossip, and you find yourself squeezing work in between other stuff – not the other way around.
These distractions can be for serious reasons, such as family issues or a loved one’s health, but they can also be for not-so-serious ones. A new love interest, for example, may be getting the lion’s share of our focus. A new group of friends might be hitting us up on social media all the time and it’s straight up more interesting than work.
Time for some tough love.
Getting back focus for one of these reasons will require discipline. Even if serious issues are going on, there are some necessary steps we must take:
- If you’re distracted for serious reasons as mentioned above, it’s a good idea to discuss the basics with your boss. They’re far more likely to be understanding. That being said…
- You probably won’t be given less work, unless you’re taking a legitimate leave from work that’s arranged with your employer. By bringing your issue to your bosses’ attention, they’ll most likely be willing to work with you. Maybe that’s coming in an hour late and staying an hour late, or working from home one day per week.
- For not-so-serious reasons, though, we’ll need to be our own disciplinarian:
- Put the smartphone on silent, and check at regular intervals only.
- Close out the internet browser. Look at stuff for fun around lunch or something. A little bit of entertainment at work can be a good thing. A lot is not.
- Stay later at work if need be, so you have less work to do, or at least think about, once you’ve left for the day.
- If you’ve lost focus and aren’t dealing with a major personal issue, you’ll have to catch up on the work you’re behind on. You must prioritize and get those important key tasks completely caught up for a couple of days/weeks/etc. to make up lost ground.
4. Change Your Environment, Or Change Yourself
Ah, the workplace environment. It’s either the turbo shot of espresso that gets us fired up, or it’s the thing that eats away at us one bite at a time. If the expression ‘product of our environment’ means anything to you, you understand how our coworkers and company culture impact our work experience.
Our workplace can be toxic to us in many ways:
- We have a bad boss or specific coworkers that drive us nuts.
- We’re in a dead end, and the most we can look forward to is a cost of living raise next year.
- The work is tedious, poorly organized or always on fire.
- The company is out of touch with its’ employees – time is wasted on silly things or people are just overworked (see item 1 above).
- Perhaps you’re just not fulfilled by your job anymore.
Taking care of ourselves outside of work can only take us so far before we need to change our environment, or change ourselves. Here’s what to do next.
- Address any instances of workplace bullying (click the link for our full article)
- Offer solutions to make things more efficient at work, and make sure you’re working as efficiently as possible, too (smarter, not just harder!)
- If you don’t hate your job or coworkers but feel unfulfilled, bring this up to your boss or any other upper managers you have contact with. This is actually a great play for a few reasons:
- It shows you have initiative and want to do bigger things.
- It may lend an explanation as to why your performance has slipped.
- It lets them know you won’t just ‘sit and stay’ – they may need to give you a raise or promotion to continue there.
- If your environment won’t change and neither will your job, it may be time to move on. Before putting yourself ‘on the market’, consider the following:
- Now’s a great time to think about what you really want at work – environment, responsibilities, arrangements, etc.
- Mitigate future interest as much as possible by identifying what made you lose focus to begin with.
- Don’t forget the basics, such as commute times, logistics and other factors that can be easy to overlook when a new job is offered.
In Summary
Losing focus at work can happen to anyone. While there may be short term issues to work through and some adjustments to make, it’s far from the end of the world. We hope you’ve found this article helpful and useful for getting your focus back!
