Four Tips to Better Focus During Brain Fog
Missy Tippens
Admission time. I’ve had trouble focusing for most of this calendar year. I’m not talking about a typical blank moment, where you walk into a room and can’t remember what on earth you went in there for. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who does that.)
No, I’m talking about bigger focus problems. Maybe you’ve felt it too… Staring at a screen and finding words fail you, as if your brain is void of synapses. Moments where you can’t summon the energy to string together a sentence. Getting online to look up something, and an hour later signing off, and then realizing you never made it to the website you'd planned to visit.
Or maybe you’ve done the opposite during the pandemic. Maybe if you were fortunate enough to stay at home, you wrote like crazy as an escape. But while not in your story, you found it difficult to focus on real life.
And what about your One Word? If you’re a person who chooses one each year to focus on, do you remember yours? In my planner, there’s a place to write your One Word each week. About April or May, I realized I had stopped filling in that blank, and I had to go back and look mine up. I couldn’t even remember it for certain. Mine for this year is PURPOSE. Obviously, I lost mine a bit.
Then I heard about a little book called Focus: How One Word a Week Will Transform Your Life by Cleere Cherry Reaves. It sounded like exactly what I needed. So I ordered it.
When it arrived in September, I immediately opened it and looked at the first word.
Diligent.
Ouch. I immediately thought God was hitting me upside the head, trying to tell me to work harder and push through the brain fog.
But then the author said that diligence didn’t just mean working hard. That our translation of the root word has lost the connection between diligence and delight.
Delight.
She went on to say that the person who delights in their work is displaying the character of God.
Reaves left us with this…
“Focus Tip: This week when you find yourself in a hard situation, whisper the word diligence and walk through it—don’t run from it. Try to find the meaning behind it and remember Who you are ultimately doing it for.”
Y’all, her words were a balm to my soul. You can read the excerpt at the “Look Inside” feature at Amazon. The words I’ve focused on so far have really spoken to me, and have actually strengthened my understanding of my purpose. I began to find joy again in the writing, because my perspective had changed.
If you’re a fan of having a One Word to focus on each year, you might enjoy focusing on a new word each week. You might want to try Cleere Cherry Reaves’s book.
Today, I wanted to share my own Four Tips to Better Focus:
--Take the focus off your lack of focus! Don’t get stuck in your head. It’s like insomnia. The longer you lie in bed, the more you worry about losing sleep, and the worse the insomnia gets. Experts say that after 20 minutes, you should just get up out of bed and do something relaxing before trying again to sleep. I have a feeling this same method can help with focus. If you’re staring at the screen, don’t keep sitting there, fretting. Get up. Do something else for a while, and then try again.
--Start your work day with prayer and Bible reading. Let God direct your steps. Then start your tasks with diligence and delight!
--Recruit some help from your family, writer friends, or critique partners. Ask them to check in to see how you’re doing with your goals. Maybe encouragement—or even a gentle push—is exactly what you need.
-- If your struggle to focus is unrelenting, consider talking with a counselor. Often, a professional can really help.
Today, I’m giving away a copy of Focus: How One Word a Week Will Transform Your Life. Please let me know if you’d like to be entered (U.S. only this time, please)! Also, please share with us your tips for focusing!
[P.S. Any links today are for convenience only. They are NOT affiliate links.]
, a pastor’s wife and mom of three from near Atlanta, Georgia, made her first sale to Harlequin Love Inspired in 2007. Her books have since been nominated for the Booksellers Best, Holt Medallion, American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award, Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, Maggie Award, Beacon Contest, RT Reviewer’s Choice Award, and the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. Visit Missy at www.missytippens.com,https://twitter.com/MissyTippens and http://www.facebook.com/missy.tippens.readers.
