Strategies For Building Unbreakable Focus

Ron McIntyre
6 min readFeb 7, 2025

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Whether you are a student, a parent, or a worker, you know the importance of focusing on everything you do in your life. Whether you have a short-term plan to follow, like completing a project by the end of the week, or a long-term goal, like graduating with honors or getting a promotion, can be accomplished without focus.

There are a few strategies for building an unbreakable focus backed by scientific research. Once you succeed in making these strategies a part of your life, you will be much more in touch with yourself and experience a sense of accomplishment that nothing else can give you.

Train your brain

This is the most essential part of the focus-building process. Your brain controls everything that happens in your body, whether it is something you think, something you see, or something you feel. This is why you must have extensive control over your brain and train it to stay focused.

This process includes building self-awareness. Without understanding your values, morals, biases, and aspirations, focusing on anything will be difficult, if not impossible. You must also be willing to adapt and flex when necessary based on society’s changing nature and your values.

Make a habit of repeating the task at hand to yourself repeatedly. Prepare yourself mentally for what you are about to do. Before you do anything, sit in a quiet place and let it sink into your brain that you will spend the next few hours on a specific task. This is a mind-strengthening exercise that you need to do to keep focused. If you train your brain well enough, it will not be sidetracked by any distractions after that.

Plan it all out

Before you start anything, you need to plan it all out and anticipate roadblocks and resource shifts. This applies not only to everyday tasks but also to long-term ones. When you plan something, you lay all the tasks before you, giving you a sense of control and empowerment over your day.

This makes determining which things require your utmost attention, such as a crucial presentation or a complex problem-solving task, easier. Using this plan, you can also schedule the time to complete your assignments and divide every task into time intervals.

When you know that you must finish a particular task within a given time frame, you can better maintain your focus.

Allow for rest

The human body is not made to function constantly, which is why the concept of sleep is present in it. No matter how much work needs to be done, you must rest for a while. Taking a half-hour break after every 4 or 5 hours that you work will help to freshen up your brain and give you time to relax, leaving you feeling rejuvenated and ready to tackle your tasks.

Resting or taking breaks can quickly build up focus. This strategy has proven successful even by scientific methods. I prefer to take quick breaks every two hours unless the flow is strong. This allows me to shake the cloud that comes with long terms of sitting in front of a computer or focusing on something detailed.

Workplaces have lunch and other breaks so employees can stay productive the whole day. This is particularly important if you are doing an extensive activity. It becomes harder to focus, so you need to give your brain and body a break. In these few minutes or half an hour, do what soothes your body. Listen to calming music or go for a walk in a calm neighborhood.

Work with music

This strategy may not work with everyone, but it has been successful in many cases. Most people enjoy listening to music. Try playing your favorite music in the background while you work. It is better if the song is not too loud because that can cause distraction.

Personally, I think music is distracting, especially if it is too loud or dramatic. When I choose to listen, my workload requires less concentration on detail. I never have the television on when working because the visuals and music will become even more distracting.

Practice mindfulness

One of the best techniques for building focus is mindfulness. The key step is to sit in a quiet place and take a deep breath in. After that, you are required to hold your breath for a few seconds and then exhale. During this pause, you must return your mind to what it needs to be.

Your mind tends to drift away occasionally because the lifespan of human concentration is merely 8 seconds. It is for this reason that you need to make this exercise a habit so that you can benefit from it. It also serves as a reliever of stress and can rid the body of any negative energy. Your focus will automatically improve once you harbor positive energy in the body and shift your brain’s function to one task.

Since we are all creatures of habit, integrating the proper habits into your workday will help immensely. Once something becomes a habit, it also becomes easy. If focusing becomes a habit, it will come to you naturally and give you multiple daily benefits.

Limit phone usage

Cell phone use and portable technology are major distractions for many people. They can easily distract you from the task that you are supposed to do.

Most students can relate to situations where they have assignments or pending projects but are instead busy on their cell phones.

So, while working, put your phone away to avoid being distracted by incoming calls or messages. If you work on your phone, install an app that blocks notifications from social media sites. I block all notifications on my phone 24 hours a day because they become habitual, active listening, and a significant distraction.

When you do not have any specific work to do on the phone, you may still be inclined to use it for social media. This is another way to distract yourself from your task and, ultimately, your goals.

Set a time for using your phone. Sometime in the evening or after dinner is a good time slot for this activity. Most people are done with their day’s work by dinnertime and may use their phones as much as they want, but please don’t sacrifice family discussions to use your phone.

Give constant reminders

Another way to eliminate distractions is constantly reminding yourself about your goals and aims. Reminders help you stay organized and focused, preventing time from being wasted on unimportant tasks.

Any businessperson or individual hoping to make a mark constantly reminds himself of the goal he is hoping to achieve. A daily reminder first thing in the morning is a good place to start.

Plan your day

Another way to avoid distractions is to plan your day. When you go to bed, make a habit of making a little plan for the next day in your mind. Remove unnecessary things and ensure that you sort out the tasks according to the time you have on your hands and the tasks that must be done first. I always add three things I want to do in my day that will express gratitude to others for their contribution to completing my day.

When you do so, your brain will slowly be trained to only pay attention to the tasks you have planned for that day. Keeping a planner or diary with you is also helpful. People with a diary are more organized and tend to get more work done on time.

When you make this habit, you can stick to your schedule. It is hard not to deviate from the plan, but it can become second nature with practice. This habit can lead to success, and your brain will automatically cancel out any unnecessary task, that is, any task not mentioned in the plan.

While this is important, you must be open to adaptability and flexibility in your plan. Sticking to a plan with many roadblocks from the surrounding environment will destroy your enthusiasm and progress. The combination makes your day productive. It’s all about balance.

Positive energy is vital as it energizes the body to function in the best way possible.

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Ron McIntyre
Ron McIntyre

Written by Ron McIntyre

Ron McIntyre is a Leadership Anthropologist, Author, and Consultant, who, in semi-retirement, is looking to help people who really want to make a difference.

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