4 Daily Hacks to Stay Focused at Work
- Feb 17
- 3 min read
By Ashley Christian
We are living in the most highly distracted society in history, with endless information and entertainment available instantly. This has trained our brains to be less focused and productive at work by default. Now, being able to focus at work like we used to before smart phones, is a super power and competitive advantage. Here are my top four hacks for staying focused at work like it was 1990.
Start the Day with Movement
I’ve always enjoyed working out, especially morning walks, but when I learned about the focus and productivity benefits of daily workouts, it gave me that extra motivation to stay consistent. Professor of Marketing at NYU, Scott Gallaway, conducted a study of the Fortune 500 CEO’s habits and found that 97% of them worked out four to five days a week.
I knew the math couldn’t lie, so I made a commitment to show up at the gym at 5 am each work day. I chose group fitness classes to help keep me accountable, motivated, and rewarded with the social aspect. I had such a huge shift in my mental clarity throughout the day, and was able to regularly solve complex marketing problems and simplify and systematize my team’s efforts. Now I see my workouts as an essential part of my workday and look forward to them!
Make Time for Meditation
Meditation is the practice of keeping your mind focused
on a single topic for ten to twenty minutes. Meditation can take many different forms, and is a muscle that when used regularly, will grow stronger. This daily hack is my secret weapon against doom-scrolling and short-form mental atrophy.
For me meditation is reading scripture, journaling my thoughts and worries as prayers, and ending with a daily gratitude list. For other people they like to use a daily meditation app, but I really enjoy meditating with old fashioned pen, paper, and print. Our minds are prone to see the urgent, negative, or dramatic. But when we take time to meditate daily, we are training our thoughts toward what is good, worthy, excellent, and praiseworthy.
Prioritize Fiber and Protein
Blood sugar stabilization is my top priority for amazing mental focus at work. When I avoid the ups and downs from quick caffeine, sugar, and processed carbohydrates, my brain and productivity are at their highest. For a morning caffeine boost, I like the slow-release energy of green tea or matcha. When I need something sweet, it’s stevia or monkfruit sweetener for me, and I skip the high fructose tropical fruits and stick to berries. For carbs I love whole grains and tubers like oats, brown rice, and sweet potatoes. Basically I eat like a diabetic on their very best behavior and my brain, and wasteline thank me for it!
Aside from what to avoid, I like to get plenty of protein and fiber through greek yogurt, chicken and fish, and veggies in a variety of colors like dark purple cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and bell peppers. Adding in healthy fats from coconut, nuts, butter, avocados, and olive oil help sustain that blood sugar and mental focus all day.
End the Day with Warm Light
Even though we all love to disconnect at the end of the day with a good show or social media scrolling, it’s important to give our nervous systems a chance to relax before going to bed. The blue light from our screens is a signal to our brains that it’s day time, and we should be active and alert. Not exactly a great prelude to a restful night’s sleep! It’s best to put down the screens an hour before bed, or at the very least turn on night-time mode with a warm filter or wear blue light filtering glasses.
Even better is to end the day by watching the sun dip below the horizon, and using warm, low lights, candles, and firelight in our homes. I love a good evening walk right as the sun is setting, and to fall asleep in bed reading my Kindle with warm, low backlighting. A good magnesium supplement, lotion, or drink will also go a long way to give you restful sleep, and the focus of a millennial before the iPhone invention.
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