In today's episode, I'm sharing 10 tips (plus a bonus) to help you stay focused at home, at work, and everywhere in between. When I covered this topic on my original podcast before rebranding, it was the most downloaded episode of the show. Today, I've re-recorded it for you with a fresh perspective and new insights that I know you'll love.
Are you sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed by all the things? I can help. Schedule a free consult today.
Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!
Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp
Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.
In today's episode, I'm sharing 10 tips (plus a bonus) to help you stay focused at home, at work, and everywhere in between. When I covered this topic on my original podcast before rebranding, it was the most downloaded episode of the show. Today, I've re-recorded it for you with a fresh perspective and new insights that I know you'll love.
Are you sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed by all the things? I can help. Schedule a free consult today.
Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!
Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp
Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.
This is your speech path mindful time management for the busy SLP. My name's Teresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnout and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in. Hey SLPs, welcome back to the show. This is episode 41 and it's actually a reboot of an episode that I recorded back in 2022, I believe, when the podcast was under a different name. The podcast before it was called your Speech Path Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. It was called A Different Name and there were about 75 roughly episodes of that show and this topic was the most downloaded episode. So what I decided to do I thought about just sort of re-releasing it, but it's been so long since it was recorded. I thought I would basically take the information from that episode and just give it a little bit of a refresher or refresher is not the right word like a freshening up, you know, a little facelift. We're just going to polish it a little bit, update it and share it with you here today. So that's what I'm going to do. Not sure how polished it will be because, honestly, this podcast if you've been here a while, you probably realize it's not the most scripted, polished type of show. It's more off the cuff and that's fine. For those of you that like that sort of thing, then you're in luck. Okay, so I'm going to be sharing 10 tips to help you stay focused. Tips to help you stay focused. Now I am probably going to throw in a bonus tip or two at the end, so definitely worth sticking around. I am going to try and breeze through these relatively quickly, because the most important part is that you have the tips and I want you to, as you're listening to this episode, really just listen for the things that appeal to you, that are helpful, that you think would really be supportive, and anything that I offer that just doesn't sound like is something that you are interested in trying, or you've tried it and it hasn't worked for you. That's fine too. I'm not suggesting that all of these 10 tips will work for every single person, but I can almost guarantee you that if you're listening to this episode, you'll find at least one tip that will work for you when it comes to increasing your focus.
Speaker 1:Maximizing your attention is a Pomodoro timer. Now, we're going to talk about timers a little bit later as well, but a Pomodoro timer is a very specific kind of a timer and you can use this. They have websites. If you google pomodoro timer, you will find this. Lots of different results and you can use this for free on your computer. It's very simple and it's nothing fancy there.
Speaker 1:There are a couple different versions of this. I tend to use the one and I think the. The basic version is 25 minutes of work followed by five a five minute break. Now, there's different schools of thought about those two lengths of time. Some people will work for longer or shorter, and some people will take longer breaks or shorter breaks. It really depends on your school of thought. You can decide what works best for you.
Speaker 1:I will just share my experience with Pomodoro timers. I don't use these as often as I used to, but I will tell you how they have worked for me and then I'll also tell you some of the reasons why they might not work for you. So, pomodoro Timers, basically, like I said, you go on the Pomodoro Timer website, you set a timer for 25 minutes and then you work, and when that 25 minutes is up, the timer will go off and then you give yourself a five minute break. This is great for tasks that I don't want to start. So many of you who listen, I know are neurodivergent. You either have been diagnosed with ADD ADHD, or you suspect that you have it, and one common challenge that those who have ADD will share is task initiation. This can be very difficult for me as well, and I would say even those who don't think they have or have a diagnosis of ADD. I'm sure you have experienced at one point or another difficulty initiating a task, so Pomodoro timers can be a great way to just get the ball rolling. So it's sort of like okay, I'm going to do this for 25 minutes and that's it. That's all I have to do is 25 minutes.
Speaker 1:Now, if we're talking about a task that is so painfully I don't know whatever that you really don't want to do it, a Pomodoro timer might not be the best approach, because 25 minutes might sound like a lifetime, and if that is you, or if that's what's coming up for you, then my suggestion would be what if you did this for five minutes and said, okay, I'm going to spend five minutes on this task and then, when it was done, you could decide if you were going to keep going or if you were going to move on? Most of the time those of us who do this if you start for about five or so minutes, you get maybe you need to give yourself 10, I don't know, but most of the time you sort of get into enough of a rhythm or enough momentum that the thought of having to start over again makes you want to just keep going. So that's something else to keep in mind. But regardless, I do find that this is helpful. Parmigioro timer is helpful for tasks that I don't want to start. It's also great for tasks that I don't want to spend too much time on. So where I feel like I could go you know nuts and just spend two hours on something and hyper focus Another challenge for those with ADD ADHD a Pomodoro timer will help pull me out of that. So it's a nice balance for me. I will say that I tend to use when I do use Pomodoro timers, or when I have in the past, I tend to use them for more of the administrative type of tasks, the tasks that don't require a lot of deep thought. This is not something that I personally would use for the quote unquote deep work that really requires a lot of thinking that I'm probably going to be spending more time on, because once that 25 minutes is up, it's sort of a distraction. You know the timer goes off and now you're like interrupted and you have to decide what you want to do. So that's just something that I have noticed, but really I want you to think about if this option or if this strategy sounds useful. What parts of it might be helpful? What parts of it might you want to modify? Okay so, pomodoro timer 25 minutes of work, five minute break.
Speaker 1:Second tip I have for staying focused is to control your phone. Get your phone under control, okay. So for me I will do one of the following I will put my phone on airplane mode or I will put my phone on do not disturb. I sometimes have found that even those steps don't always keep me from picking up my phone and sometimes even looking through it. So I might, on certain occasions, put my phone in the other room or power it down completely. Whatever I need to do to get it out of my hands and off of my mind. It is such a distraction and I know that I don't need to tell you. I know I'm not telling you anything, you don't know. But I also know that most of us don't put our phone on airplane mode or do not disturb when we're at work or when we're working on a certain task, and I really think that the benefits of that simple strategy are huge, so don't underestimate the power of doing that.
Speaker 1:On a similar note, when it comes to the phone, other suggestions that I have done or that I've given clients in the past or that I have used myself, would be putting in screen time limits or you know so for social media apps or different apps or email on my phone, where, after X number of minutes, I can't access those things anymore. Although I will say that in the past, when I've done that, I figured out how to override it. It was super simple on an iPhone. It just wasn't enough of a barrier for me, so I would remove them from my phone. Of a barrier for me, so I would remove them from my phone. I at first started by removing them from my home screen, but then I figured out how I could find the apps on my phone with a simple search. So in many cases I will actually remove them from my phone altogether. Those are extreme cases, but definitely effective. So think about what you need to do to your phone, what modifications you can put in place so that it stops stealing your time, okay, third thing I do is when I sit down to work.
Speaker 1:That is almost always when I remember lots of different things that are floating around in my brain, of tasks that are on a to-do list or should have been on a to-do list, or you know, maybe just things that I hadn't even thought of. Those thoughts always seem to pop up when I'm trying to focus, to pop up when I'm trying to focus. So I just keep a notepad right next to me, and when I'm in the middle of work and I remember something randomly, I will just write it down and come back to it when I'm finished. Because what I used to do and sometimes still do this I'll catch myself is I would remember something that I needed to check or I needed to look up or I needed to purchase or whatever, and I then would open up a million tabs on my computer while I was trying to get work done, because I would say to myself, oh gosh, if I don't do this now, I'm going to forget or I'll never do it. And that was not helpful at all. So I started just keeping a notepad next to me or a little piece of paper, and I would write down whatever popped in my brain and then, when I'm finished working on whatever task I'm working on, once that's complete, I then Look at the notepad and figure out what do I need to do to manage the things that I wrote down.
Speaker 1:Okay, fourth tip that I have for staying focused is called priming. Now, priming is a really useful tip, but it is underutilized, and I've heard this described different ways, but let me kind of walk you through what I mean when I'm talking about priming. Priming is essentially something that you can do to trigger your brain that this specific task or event or experience is about to happen, so it gets your brain into that line of thinking. Now there's a couple different ways that I do this and I'll share them in case they're helpful for you. One is by a sort of creating a sort of ritual or routine that's probably a better word like some sort of a routine that I do before I start work, and this is just something that it's very simple.
Speaker 1:You know, for some people I don't drink coffee, but for people who drink coffee it might be like you sit down or you go over to the coffee maker, you get your favorite mug, you make yourself your favorite cup of coffee and then you go sit in your work area. So for me it's usually putting on a certain playlist on Amazon Music and sometimes it will be lighting a candle and I'll sit down at my desk and I'll do like a wipe of the desk surface and those are like my three things that I do that get me into work mode. That's just like a routine, you know. That just kind of tells my body okay, this is what's happening and then tells my brain okay, this is what's happening. That is useful for me.
Speaker 1:But what is actually more powerful for me when it comes to priming is thinking about and visualizing the task before I actually start it, especially as a mom where I'm the one doing drop-offs and pickups every day. I have max five hours a day to get my work done Really. At the most it's five hours when the kids are in school before I have to. You know scoot, so I don't want to waste any time trying to get into the work mode, trying to initiate and get on board with whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing. So one thing that's helped me with that is thinking ahead of what I'm about to start, and I have found that this is really the most useful in the very beginning of my day and before I'm starting something that I feel a lot of resistance towards doing. Example, after I drop the kids off, as I'm driving back home to my office.
Speaker 1:That's when I might start thinking about what it is that I'm going to start doing. So I might be thinking about the podcast episode that I'm going to record. Or I may be thinking about a client and the resources or strategies I wanted to offer questions. I wanted to ask you know, whatever is coming up on my schedule or in my plan. That's what I'm thinking about before I even get there. So that way, once I sit down, I've already greased the wheels, I've got some momentum to build off of and I can basically hit the ground running, running. So it makes me more efficient and helps me to get more accomplished or make better use of the limited time that I have, I'll also similarly do this by simply visualizing. So not just thinking about the task, but visualizing what it's going to look like so me sitting down, but visualizing what it's going to look like. So me sitting down, picturing where the items are that I might need to gather for whatever I'm about to do Like really just sort of envisioning myself doing that task helps me get into action faster. Okay, so that's priming, and this fifth strategy that I have for you sort of builds right off of or builds on strategies that I've already shared today.
Speaker 1:This fifth strategy is prepping your workspace. Now, I mentioned this earlier as sort of one of the rituals or routines that I do before I start working. Yes, that's true, I do. You know, like I said, light environment is really think about what works best for you. This strategy and all of these strategies really rely on self awareness. So if you are somebody who likes to have a big open space and you like to have your materials or your belongings just sort of spread out across the table, across your desk, then that might be part of prepping your environment. That might also include, then, clearing things clearing things like clutter, things that are going to distract you and things that are going to distract you and things that are going to draw your focus away from the task.
Speaker 1:Okay, so those are a couple of ways that prepping your workspace might look, but I want to caution you, to be really careful that you don't go down the productive procrastination rabbit hole, where you start to prep your workspace but really it just snowballs into a total overhaul of your, let's say, your office and now you're basically doing everything but the one task that you were supposed to be doing. So you have to really know yourself. This is where the self-awareness comes in, and you have to really make the best decisions in terms of what is actually going to help you, what is actually necessary and how can you kind of keep it contained, so to speak, so that it is in support of you and not doing yourself a disservice. And one other thing I'll say on this that I have found helpful and actually I have a client who mentioned this as well. Just thought of her is doing a little, doing this as a little reset. So I like to do this as a little reset in between sessions or in between different tasks that I have. I will just kind of do like a you know, two minute max clear of the space, because in doing that it gives my brain a little bit of a break and it gives me a clear end to one task and then a beginning of another. So it is easier for me to sort of transition from one thing to the next when I have that prep period and I'm talking like two minutes of clearing the space. It just sort of helps me, say, tells my brain okay, that's done, now we're moving on to this. Okay, so prepping your workspace.
Speaker 1:The sixth strategy or the sixth tip that I have that I do I mean this is religiously for me is use my headphones. I use the Apple AirPods. I guess I'm surprised when I hear or learn that some people don't use headphones. I just find headphones to be I don't know. They are one way for me to really hone in and focus. And actually recently I dropped the case of my AirPods and they opened up and they fell and they fell in my office and I found one. I could not find the other. I used all the technology that I have and know how to use to try and find where this stupid AirPod is, this one missing AirPod, could not find it. I looked all day and finally I was like you know what this is it, I'm just moving on. So I bought another pair because that's how much I rely on them, that's how much I use my headphones.
Speaker 1:So, for me, headphones help me to block out noise, block out distractions, also, just very obviously very mobile. So I can, you know, listen to something in the car and as I pull in to the driveway, I just pop my headphones in and I keep going and I don't miss a beat. I also use my headphones when I'm working. Don't miss a beat. I also use my headphones when I'm working. One thing that I have found helpful on Amazon Music you could do this on any you know music, spotify or whatever is binaural beats. I find them to be very helpful for me and my brain, and I know there is research that supports that, but obviously everybody's different, so you have to do what works well for you. But I will put on my playlist, pop in my headphones, put on my playlist and stay focused. So definitely strongly suggest headphones. And for those of you that work with a team or you have contractors or employees, sometimes having headphones in might feel a little bit off-putting or a little bit rude, but I also would offer that, if you're struggling with being interrupted, maybe using headphones would be a simple way to sort of signal to others around you, like hey, I'm working on something right now, like I'm in the middle of a task or I'm focusing on something specific, and that might be just an easy way to sort of send that message without being interrupted a bunch of times. So consider that, okay, got a few more for you.
Speaker 1:Next tip for staying focused give yourself a reward. Don't just bulldoze over any, all of your accomplishments, the things that you get done, especially for the big tasks that you would rather not do or that are difficult, challenging, annoying. Give yourself a reward, do something. This could be a little mini reward at the end, right, and this kind of brings us back to the Pomodoro timer at the start of the episode, but the Pomodoro timer is designed for this. This is essentially the point of the Pomodoro timer is, after the 25 minutes of work, you get that five minute break. Similarly, what can you do at the end of a certain task or a certain amount of time just to give yourself a little treat? That might be walking outside, it might be a quick meditation, it might be, you know, going and grabbing a coffee. It could be reading a book, or I don't know. If you work from home, I like to reward myself with like a 30-minute show. I'll have lunch and then maybe watch an episode of something or go for a walk outside Just little things that help you feel like. You know it's a little treat, right? So don't underestimate the power of a mini reward.
Speaker 1:Okay, number eight I'm going back to timers for a minute, so I want to talk about these. This is different now from a Pomodoro timer. I want to talk about the ways that you can use timers in general to support you with staying focused. Okay, so first thing I'm going to say about this is consider your brain and whether you need a timer to be analog or digital. So for me, for so long, I used digital timers on my phone primarily on my phone and they're helpful, but if I'm really trying to focus on work, I prefer an analog timer, a timer where I can see the time going down. I can see how much time is left, so I use the time timer. There's lots of options that are out there, but think about what you need. Do you need it in your face or is it more. If it's out of sight, it's not out of mind for you, in which case a digital timer or a timer on your watch or your phone might be perfectly appropriate and effective. So you get to decide.
Speaker 1:But two ways that I'll use timers. One is a timer to begin work. So, again, when I'm struggling with task initiation, I might just sort of dawdle, procrastinate and do basically everything else except that one thing that I'm avoiding. So I will oftentimes set a timer, and when the timer goes off, that's when I have to begin getting you know, working on the activity that I've been avoiding. Or I might also set a timer to try and accomplish something before I run out of time, something before I run out of time. This is something that I often do for things that I spend more time on than I quote unquote should or need to. Or I might also do this for things that are more physical, like cleaning, organizing. If I'm going around the house and trying to, you know, tidy up, I might try and I might say, okay, well, can I get this entire room done in 20 minutes, or could I get this section of the room done in 10 minutes, or something like that. So I'll use a timer for that reason as well, to sort of beat the clock.
Speaker 1:Okay, and now there's a couple other things that I want to mention about timers that I think could be useful for those of you who are listening. One is the benefits of using a timer to and a stopwatch here might be more appropriate, but to use some sort of a timer system to help you figure out how much time it takes you to accomplish things. So for those of you that struggle with quote-unquote time blindness, where you're not really sure how long you need, or how long you need to complete a task, or how long it takes you to complete a task, that might be timers could be a helpful strategy for this. But also, I think that timers can be helpful when you want to just spend a certain amount of time on an activity. So in coaching sessions, for example, we'll talk about, I'll coach clients on procrastination.
Speaker 1:That comes up a lot, and so sometimes the thought of doing an entire project from start to finish, depending upon what it is, can be really overwhelming. And one thing that, if you have ADD ADHD you might struggle with is breaking tasks down into smaller chunks. Well, one sort of solution to this, if you will is setting a timer to just spend a certain amount of time on that task. So rather than tell yourself, okay, I'm going to write, let's say, five session notes today, you could instead say, all right, I'm going to set the timer for 20 minutes and as many session notes as I get done in 20 minutes is, that's it, that's what I get done today. So you again have to know yourself and what works best for you, or you have to have a really good coach who can help you figure that out. But I think that there is some one way or another that you could be using timers differently to support yourself and so hopefully, as you listen to a couple of those examples, maybe you now have some new ideas of how you can incorporate timers to help you stay focused. All right, I've got one, two, two more and then maybe a bonus one at the end. So stay with me.
Speaker 1:Next strategy I have for you, strategy or tip number nine is knowing your energy levels and your natural rhythms. So when do you feel, when do you typically feel, most energized? When are you typically most focused? When are you typically most creative, really creative, really understanding your natural energy and yes, there may be times of day that are patterns, right, but this may also, you know, vary from day to day because we are not robots, so this is going to vary and you need to keep that in mind. But in general, are you a morning person or are you a night owl? Are you someone that really gets their best work done mid-morning or late afternoon? So thinking about that and considering that Could be a useful way for you to plan out what you're going to work on when, rather than, you know, trying to swim upstream and force yourself to do something when you're not in that mindset, you're not in that energy space to get it done. All right, number 10. And I'm excited to share this tip because it's something that we started doing in the SLP support group. So if this sounds interesting or beneficial for you, definitely click the link in the show notes to join the Facebook group.
Speaker 1:But the 10th tip I have for you is body doubling. I'm going to lump all these together Body doubling, co-working, accountability Okay, these are not all exactly the same thing, but I'm putting them here together because all are useful and they're all very much related. So body doubling is, if you haven't heard of it, it is a strategy that is relatively common among the ADD ADHD population, where you're basically working I'm going to say, side by side doesn't always have to be side by side but you're working on something independently at the same time as somebody else is working on something independently. Now, sometimes it could be the exact same thing. So so let's say you and your I don't know partner are both clearing out clutter from different areas. You're not working together, you're each doing it yourself, but because the other one is doing the purging, the organizing, then they are. Then you are more likely to stay on task. This could also be a situation where you are just focused on something on your computer and somebody else is also focused on their work on their computer. Somebody else is also focused on their work on their computer and just seeing that person, or knowing that that person is there and they are focused, helps you to stay focused. Okay, so that's. That's essentially body doubling.
Speaker 1:Similarly, co working is you might hear body doubling called co working. They're often used interchangeably. Same idea is you're basically working with a group of people, but you're working independently and you might be working on the same task. So, for example, there's another coach who I know and she and I do a co-working session once a week and we're not working on anything together, but we're both on zoom. She's working on something, I'm working on something, and it is really effective for I can. I can't speak for her, but it can speak for me when I say that it's very effective to get me to actually do the task, which, at that point, the thing that we are doing, or the thing that I'm doing during that time, is content creation, so creating podcast episodes, facebook posts and all that type of stuff. So that has been very helpful for me and a sort of spinoff of this, which I'm sure you've heard of finding yourself an accountability partner. So this could be something as simple as texting somebody right before you start any task and you might just say I'm about to start writing session notes, I'll text you when I've finished five. However, that works for you, right, but just sort of putting that out into the universe so that somebody else is aware of what you're doing and you have someone to report back to. That can be a really effective way to help you stay focused and accomplish what it is that you're setting out to do.
Speaker 1:So if this is something that you're interested in or that you. If this is something that you're interested in or that you think would be helpful for you, then, like I said, make sure that you join the SLP support group. We have our next co-working session scheduled for Monday, april 15th, so that'll be just shy of two weeks after this episode airs, and that happens in Zoom, but you need to be in the Facebook group in order to gain access to that. It's free, but it is scheduled for 12 pm Eastern, and I will be doing them at least once a month for the foreseeable future. So if you're listening to this episode and it's long after the episode has aired, then still pop into the group, because it's likely that there is a coworking session that's happening in the near future.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that is body doubling, coworking, accountability. Use those however you see fit. Now I said I was going to throw in a bonus and I'm going to offer that right now, very quickly, and then we're out of here, okay. So the last strategy I have for you this is something that has personally worked for me and I use it when I'm doing more physical type activities, and it is narrating, and it's funny because this is a strategy that I used to share with the families that I would work with when I was treating as a speech pathologist. So I know that those of you who are SLPs and are listening, you're familiar with this strategy, know that those of you who are SLPs and are listening, you're familiar with this strategy. Basically, it's talking out loud about what you are doing as you're doing it. This is something that will probably drive your family members crazy, okay, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:But I have found it particularly helpful for me at the end of the day, when I'm pretty low on energy and focus and I'm trying to do it happens all the time with cooking. So if I'm trying to cook a meal or if I'm prepping lunches, for whatever reason, it seems to be more helpful during, when I'm in like kitchen routine type tasks, I will start like a million different tasks all at once. At the end of the day, I'll be folding a load of laundry, I'll be trying to pack lunches for the next day, trying to cook dinner and helping three kids with homework and, of course, none of that is going very well. It's not effective. So one of the things that I have done in addition, to stop multitasking, or try to stop multitasking and just do one thing at a time.
Speaker 1:I find that I am incredibly scattered when it comes to following a sequence, and so I, when I narrate or talk out loud about what I am doing or what I need to be doing, it helps me recognize what are the things that have to happen next. So I might say something like okay, so preheat the oven to 450. Then you need to pull out the recipe from the binder, because yes, I'm a grandma and I keep my recipes in a binder on my kitchen counter. So I'll pull out the binder, right, and I'll say okay, you got to check the recipe, find out what the ingredients are. So then go pull out those ingredients and I'll just talk myself through each step. If I need a bowl, grab this bowl, grab a brush or you know different utensils that you might need, because otherwise what happens is I'm so scattered that I might pull out the wrong recipe, or I might grab two of the ingredients and not all of them, or I might be walking around from drawer to drawer wondering what it is that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:But when I start speaking out loud, talking out loud about what I'm doing, it helps me focus. It's that, I think, additional sensory input that is needed, where I can hear the sound of my voice and really hone in on what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. So I just wanted to throw that one in there for anybody who it might be helpful for. If not just disregard, no problem, all right. So that is it for today's episode. 10 tips for staying focused. Well, 10 plus 1, which would be 11. I hope that this was helpful for you. Pop on over into the Facebook group and if you want more individualized support with how to stay focused and accomplish your goals, both in work and at home, book a free consult today and I'll let you know how I can help.