In an increasingly connected world, concentrating at work can be a real challenge. Incessant notifications, repeated meetings and multiple distractions make concentration difficult. Yet this ability can actually improve our productivity and well-being. Without concentration, it's impossible to accomplish complex and important tasks. Concentration also maximizes efficiency. By improving our ability to concentrate, we can not only accomplish more tasks, but also perform them to a higher standard. This has a direct impact on our performance and job satisfaction. This article explores strategies for improving our concentration and thus our performance.

Taking time to focus

The first thing to do to achieve concentration is to set aside dedicated spaces and specific times for deep work. Deep work consists in immersing oneself fully in a task without interruption, thus enabling maximum concentration. To achieve this, it's essential to find solutions to create a conducive environment, free from distractions, and to plan time slots reserved exclusively for these intensive work sessions. By clearly defining these times and respecting them, you encourage total immersion in your tasks, freeing your head and considerably improving the quality and efficiency of the work accomplished.

Organizing your diary

To improve your concentration at work, good organization of your diary is essential. Here are four key points for structuring your schedule to maximize productivity and maintain optimum concentration.

• Block off time slots for deep work : Set aside specific slots in your diary for deep work, where you can concentrate without interruptions. Ideally, schedule these sessions during the times when you're most productive, like the morning for many people. During these times, avoid meetings, phone calls and e-mails to maximize your concentration.
• Group similar tasks together : Organize your diary so that similar tasks are grouped together. For example, set aside blocks of time to deal with e-mails, another for meetings, and separate sessions for brainstorming or creative projects. This approach reduces the time wasted switching from one task to another and improves concentration.
• Plan regular breaks: Build regular breaks into your schedule to avoid mental fatigue. Techniques such as the Pomodoro method, which involves working for 25 minutes and then taking short 5-minute breaks, can be very effective. These breaks help to recharge your batteries and maintain a high level of concentration throughout the day.
• Regularly evaluate and adjust your agenda: Take the time to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your organization. Each week, take stock of what has worked well and what could be improved. Adjust your schedule accordingly to optimize your periods of concentration and ensure that you remain productive and aligned with your objectives.

Bonus: a list of questions to ask yourself to challenge your organization this week. 

• "If I string together 4 hours of meetings, will I be fresh enough for that important task afterwards?" This question helps you gauge your available energy and concentration for essential tasks after a series of meetings. It can prompt you to place important tasks at times when you're most fresh, often at the start of the day or after a break.
• "What's my priority today? Should I continue on this project when I have a very important deadline tomorrow?". This question allows you to start each day with a short planning session where you define your priorities and organize your agenda. This can include checking scheduled meetings, identifying priority tasks and setting up a structured work plan.
• "Is this activity worth moving forward on while one of my colleagues is stuck if I don't move forward on another task?"

By following these best practices, you can optimize your schedule to maximize your periods of concentration and productivity. Good organization of your work helps to reduce stress, improve the quality of your results and better manage your mental workload on a daily basis.

Challenge your meetings 

In order not to overload the brain, and also to be able to do more activities and tasks during the day, you need to have fewer meetings.

Challenging the meetings you take part in is essential for better concentration at work and freeing up your time, as it ensures that each meeting is really necessary and productive. All too often, meetings are scheduled out of habit or without a clear objective, wasting valuable time and scattering attention. By assessing and questioning the relevance of each meeting, you can reduce the number of unnecessary meetings and free up continuous blocks of time for periods of deep work. This helps maintain sustained concentration on important tasks. To challenge them well: 

1. Use other asynchronous tools to communicate effectively. 

• Loom makes it possible to transmit engaging information asynchronously. It's an ideal tool for sharing updates, instructions or demonstrations without having to schedule a live meeting. Loom videos can be viewed by each recipient at their own pace.
• Voice memos can also be very useful. They enable you to quickly structure information on a document, while remaining informal. Limit their duration to 3-5 minutes to avoid loss of attention, and don't hesitate to repeat them if necessary.
• The internal newsletter is another powerful tool for improving collaboration between teams, keeping everyone up to date on progress, and enhancing the value of everyone's work. For an internal newsletter to be read, it needs to have a fixed structure with catchy headlines and text. It's crucial to include information that's relevant and interesting to readers, in a concise and engaging way.

2. Ritualize your meetings: For example, plan a 30-45 minute exchange ritual at a fixed weekly or fortnightly cadence, with an agenda co-constructed by the participants on a shared document. This saves energy by avoiding the need for constant re-planning. What's more, this preparation allows informal discussions to take place at the start of the meeting, fostering a true spirit of collaboration.

3. Prepare your meetings: you'll be considerably more efficient! Here are a few quick tips to help you do just that: 

• The title of the meeting should clearly reflect its purpose. For example, instead of a vague title like "Project discussion", use a specific title like "Decision on project X budget for Q3".

• Use the invitation to clarify expectations. Include details of the topics to be discussed, the documents to be prepared and the contributions expected from each participant. This allows everyone to arrive prepared, making the meeting more productive.
• Lead the meeting in a directive manner by asking short, direct questions. For example, instead of asking "Have you had time to read my e-mail?", ask "Have you read my e-mail?". This helps to keep the focus and avoid digressions.
• Agree in advance on how decisions are to be made. This avoids misunderstandings and increases efficiency. For example, decide whether decisions will be taken by majority or consensus, and clearly state this process in the invitation.
• Use a single shared document that contains everything you need to know throughout the process: links, tools, documents to read. This centralizes information and avoids dispersal by keeping a clear framework.

Want to go further? Discover our tool to optimize your meetings by 30%.

Prioritize

To be truly effective at work, it's essential to know how to prioritize your tasks. Prioritizing allows you to concentrate on what really matters, focusing on the activities that will have the greatest impact. This helps you manage your time optimally, avoid unnecessary distractions and reduce the stress of managing multiple responsibilities. By taking a moment to clearly define your objectives and focusing on priority tasks, you can maximize your productivity and achieve your goals more quickly and efficiently.

Know your goals (OKR, GOW)

Knowing your goals, such as OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) or GOWs (Goals of the Week), is essential for better concentration at work, as it provides clear direction and well-defined priorities. By knowing precisely what needs to be achieved, you can focus your energy and be more effective on the most important tasks, and have control over potential distractions, thus optimizing your productivity and efficiency.

Start by defining your priorities for the week - these need to be measurable and specific: Rather than vague objectives like "improve productivity", identify concrete, measurable goals like "increase sales by X% over the next quarter" or "cut support ticket processing time in half by the end of the year". This makes your objectives more tangible and enables you to track your progress objectively.

Strike a balance between ambition and realism: It's tempting to keep aiming higher and higher, but unrealistic goals can be discouraging and counter-productive. It's important to be ambitious while remaining grounded in reality. Set challenging but achievable goals, taking into account available resources and contextual constraints.

Challenge yourself on priorities

To concentrate properly, it's crucial to know what to focus on, and therefore to prioritize in order to focus on what really matters. The ability to identify and prioritize the most important tasks maximizes the impact of your work, and reduces the stress associated with multitasking and multiple responsibilities.

Here is a list of questions to help you prioritize:

1. How important and urgent is each task?
2. What are the essential deadlines and how can you meet them?
3. What activities can be delegated or eliminated to avoid multitasking?
4. Which tasks contribute directly to achieving objectives?

Our advice: make time for the unexpected. Sometimes priorities change along the way, or new emergencies arise. In such cases, it's essential to be flexible, to make concessions, and to be able to adapt to the new situation. To ensure peace of mind in such situations, set aside time to absorb unforeseen events, for example with email slots to deal with urgent emails, or "todo en vrac" slots to carry out all the tasks that would otherwise take 10 minutes each, over a 30-minute or 1-hour period. 

Learn to concentrate with NUMA

The ability to concentrate is far from innate. Luckily for you, many organizations offer training in time and concentration management. At NUMA, our Product teams have designed a Focusing program full of ideas and tips to help you better manage your time, your energy and protect your concentration. 

A course of 5 workshops: 

• Fewer but better meetings to make the remaining ones more effective. 
• Asynchronous communication to communicate effectively and avoid systematic meetings
• Prioritize what you want to focus on, collectively and individually
• Delegation and performance to successfully delegate and manage unforeseen performance issues
• Deciding under uncertainty making the right decisions at difficult times

Want to find out more? Contact our team to discuss.