Real Focus. Magazine Psychologies

is something you need to keep at; you don’t master it overnight. However, there are plenty of bite-sized tips throughout the book, so that you can start working on your focus straightaway.

      You will also find tests that will help you assess yourself and navigate your personal journey towards Real Focus. We hope that these, along with the ‘Ask Yourself’ questions at the end of each chapter, will help you to gain a deeper understanding of your obstacles and goals where focus is concerned and also to relate what you read in this book to your own experience. In addition, we have included case studies from real people (names and identifying circumstances changed). Their journeys will help you see how it’s possible to achieve Real Focus and give you a wider range of tools to do so yourself.

      We interviewed a sociologist, a clinical psychologist/mindfulness expert, a time management and productivity expert, an investigative journalist, an entrepreneur/business author and a speaker/author. All of them are leaders in their field and were handpicked by us to offer as varied and rounded a picture as possible of what Real Focus is and how you can achieve it. For all their colourful differences, however, it could be said that they all have one, clear goal: to help people to live a ‘good life’ – that is, a balanced, happy, full life that is rich with the things that matter to them. They are united in the fact that in order to make this possible, one must cultivate Real Focus. We hope that, contained within these pages, is how.

      THE EXPERTS INTERVIEWED FOR REAL FOCUS

      Dalton Conley, sociologist, Henry Putnam University Professor of Sociology at Princeton University

      Dalton has many academic roles including University Dean, University Professor and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He writes and speaks on subjects such as race, socioeconomic status, poverty and the role of technology in society. He coined the term ‘weisure’ to describe the blurring of work and leisure and is also the author of many books, including Social Class: How Does it Work?, Elsewhere USA and his latest, Parentology.

@daltonconley

      Mark Forster, author and specialist in time management and organization

      Mark is the author of numerous books including Get Everything Done, Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management and Still Have Time To Play. His latest book is Secrets of Productive People. Mark has also developed a time-management system called Final Version.

http://markforster.squarespace.com/home/ @AutofocusTM

      Dr Tamara Russell, clinical psychologist, mindfulness trainer and martial artist

      Tamara combines all three disciplines to work with individuals and organizations advising on mindfulness techniques to enhance performance and improve mental and physical wellbeing. She is director of the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence (virtual) and author of Mindfulness in Motion (Watkins Publishing), a book teaching the Body In Mind training which she developed.

www.drtamararussell.com

      Brigid Schulte, author, former award-winning Washington Post reporter and current director of The Better Life Lab at the nonprofit think tank, New America, and mother of two

      A few years ago, Brigid found herself besieged by constant, exhausting busyness. Wondering why she felt so overwhelmed, she decided to go on a quest to find out. The result is her New York Times bestseller: Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No one Has The Time (Picador). Schulte was a long-time, award-winning journalist for The Washington Post, and now directs the Better Life Lab at New America, which seeks to drive the evolution of work, reframe gender equality to include both the advance of women and the changing roles of men, and rewire policy to support the needs of diverse 21st century families.

www.brigidschulte.com @BrigidSchulte

      Laura Vanderkam, author and speaker on topics such as time, money and productivity

      Laura questions the status quo and helps people to rediscover their true passions and beliefs in pursuit of more meaningful lives. Her books include What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast (Portfolio), 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio), and All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Wealth (Portfolio). Her latest book is I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time (Portfolio). She is also a frequent contributor to Fast Company’s website and a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors.

www.lauravanderkam.com @lvanderkam

      Sháá Wasmund, MBE, speaker, entrepreneur and author

      Sháá is one of the UK’s most prominent female entrepreneurs and a champion of small businesses. After being a boxing manager (the only woman ever to do so), she set up Smarta.com, which gives advice and tools to small businesses and start ups. In 2015, she was awarded an MBE for services to business and entrepreneurship. She is also the author of the bestselling books Stop Talking, Start Doing and Do Less, Get More.

www.shaa.com @shaawasmund

      1 HOW FOCUSED ARE YOU?

      CHAPTER 1

      Defining ‘Real Focus’

      HOW DO YOU FEEL RIGHT NOW?

      So what is ‘Real Focus’ anyway? Why do you need it and what would it bring to your life? In order to start answering these questions, we need to look at how your life probably feels right now – in other words, what Real Focus definitely isn’t.

      Chances are if you feel Real Focus is a problem for you, the following phrases feature heavily in your vocabulary:

      ‘Life’s just crazy …’

      ‘There aren’t enough hours in the day …’

      ‘I’m feeling totally overwhelmed …’

      ‘Stop, I want to get off!’

      One of the key characteristics of lacking focus and feeling overwhelmed is that we can’t see the wood for the trees. This feels slightly different for everybody, but we’d put money on the fact that the following are very familiar …

      1. Your time feels fragmented and ‘bitty’

      Brigid Schulte, harassed mother of two and reporter for the Washington Post, remembers very clearly the point at which she decided she had to write her book Overwhelmed: How To Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time. She was clearing up after her son’s birthday party and her husband was outside on the patio smoking a cigar. She’d cleared the food and plates away and all that was left to do now was to sweep the ‘Happy Birthday’ confetti off the table and floor. As an exhausted Schulte surveyed the small bits and pieces all over the place, it occurred to her that her life felt exactly like the confetti: scattered, fragmented and exhausting.

      Sound familiar? When we’re trying to stretch ourselves too far, we lose sight of our goals and feel overwhelmed. This is how our time feels: like hundreds of little pieces of confetti – that when you put them back together don’t seem to amount to much. You feel like you’ve been on your feet all day, completing endless tasks: sending emails, running errands, and working your way through an ever-expanding to-do list – but do you feel like you’ve actually achieved anything?

      Of course, you’re not alone in feeling like this. Our harried lives and constant busyness seem to have overtaken the weather as the UK’s number one topic of conversation. We have more choice than ever in terms of what we do with our time, but this is stressing us out even more because we don’t know what to focus on. As a result, we fall into the trap of trying to focus on everything,